There are over 44,000 Guyanese receiving monthly “old-age” pension, which most of them depend on. Yet the way the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) treats pensioners is painful, deplorable, insensitive and uncaring. APNU/AFC’s treatment of pensioners is a full-screen display of the cold-hearted, cruel, inhumane character of the Government. Recent proposals of implementing fixed-rate water bills for senior citizens and the treatment of GuySuCo pensioners are cruel examples of how uncaring APNU/AFC is. Rubbing salt into the injury, the Minister Agriculture on Tuesday admitted he has no idea of the status of the GuySuCo pension fund.
This past week, the head of the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI), Dr Richard Van West-Charles announced that GWI is considering charging a fixed-fee ($741 per month) for water, for senior citizens. He announced it gleefully as a favour to senior citizens. No one from the Government has repudiated this announcement and I do not expect that they will respond. Far from being a favour to senior citizens, as the GWI boss insists, GWI and the APNU/AFC are ignoring that before 2015 these senior citizens were exempted from water bills. The fixed-fee arrangement, therefore, no matter how much it is, is punitive.
The Finance Minister and other senior Government officials have argued that, while they had eliminated the exemption of senior citizens from paying water bills, they made up for this by increasing the monthly “old-age” pension. But this is spinning the facts to misinform, misdirect and deceive people. The annual increase in “old-age” pension has been in place since 1992.
For 23 years, pensioners received an annual increase in their monthly payment under successive People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Governments. APNU/AFC has maintained this increase and the annual increases since 2015 under APNU/AFC are not meaningfully different and better in comparison to the rate of increase from 2010 to 2015. These increases in the monthly payment to seniors cannot make up for the elimination of the water rate exemption. Between APNU/AFC and the GWI, the fixed rate proposal is, therefore, a sledge hammer on the heads of pensioners.
APNU/AFC did not only eliminate payment of water bills for senior citizens, they also eliminated the subsidy that the PPP Government had provided for senior citizens to reduce their electricity bills. Both the water and electricity subsidies were additional entitlements senior citizens received up to 2015, in addition to the monthly “old-age” pension increases.
The elimination of these subsidies essentially means that the increases in the monthly payments to senior citizens that APNU/AFC has boasted about are artificial. The sum total is that what the senior citizens were receiving in 2018 each month is not meaningfully different from what they were receiving in 2015. It is a zero-sum scam. When we add the fact that senior citizens are now paying 14 per cent VAT on their water and electricity bills and for a larger number of items they procure every month, senior citizens monthly “old-age” pension has depreciated since 2015.
In 1992, the PPP widened “old-age” pension by eliminating the “MEANS” Test. Before 1992, “old-age” pension was only provided to one member of a household and only for households that met certain requirements, such as not being a home owner and not having any money in the bank. From then on, the only requirement was that a person reached the age of 65 and every member of a household aged 65 and over was eligible. Every year since then, the “old-age” pension has increased. Recognising these increases in monthly payments are not enough, the PPP Government provided further safety nets that meaningfully added to the monthly payments. These included the subsidies such as the exemption of water bills and subsidies for payment of electricity bills. By eliminating the additional safety nets, APNU/AFC essentially has pursued a policy of shrinking benefits that the State extended to senior citizens.
Even as safety nets for senior citizens are under assault by this Government, GuySuCo pensioners face the possibility that they may not benefit from a pension they have earned. Their pension is a property they own and cannot be taken from them. GuySuCo and the Government would be guilty of a crime if they fail to pay the pensioners their monthly payments. With the closure of estates and the continued mismanagement of GuySuCo, sugar workers are facing the real possibility that their pension fund might go broke. The Government is ignoring this possibility and acting with an insensitivity and coldness that is a disgrace and the admission by the Agriculture Minister that he is unaware of the status of the fund is misconduct. One wonders why APNU/AFC’s attitude to GuySuCo pensioners is different from their attitude to bauxite pensioners.
