Region 6 Chairman calls on Govt not to forsake pensioners

Pensioners are being treated with almost no respect when they turn up at post offices to collect their monthly pension. This is according to Region Six Chairman David Armogan, who on Friday said that Government must act now and put measures in place to prevent the long periods the elderly have to wait to collect their monthly pension.

“What I have seen around and people have reported to me is that they go to these post offices on the first or second day of the month, which is the designated day to collect their pensions; and when they go there, sometimes that have to wait until 10 or 11 o’clock. They go there at 6 0’clock in the morning, and hardly any of them would have had anything to eat,” Armogan told this publication.
However, that is just the tip of the iceberg, he said, adding that many pensioners need to be accompanied, while others have medical conditions which make it almost impossible for them to be at the post office for five or six hours.
The regional chairman explained that post offices are now no longer ready to make payments as soon as they open for business.
He noted that the pensioners receive only a small amount of money, and when they are asked to return on a second day, there is an additional cost in terms of transportation.
Armogan said the situation is far from being acceptable. He also noted that many of the post offices — not only in Region Six, but countrywide — do not have proper sanitary facilities to accommodate pensioners.
“I have seen instances where pensions have virtually soiled themselves because they don’t have access to toilet facilities,” Armogan related. Hunger, he said, also affects many pensioners waiting to collect their pension at post offices, which is assigned to distribute old age pension.
The regional chairman said he have received reports of pensioners fainting as they wait to receive their pension at a post office. Many post offices lack seating accommodation, the chairman added.
“They have to stand up in a line just for those couple dollars. Even as heart-rending as this may seem, some pensioners are forced to endure that ordeal for two days, and on occasions for a third day,” he said.
Armogan has said he is hoping that the authorities responsible for the payment of pension – moreso the Social Protection Ministry and the Guyana Post Office Corporation — would come together and improve the situation.
Pensioners, he added, have contributed immensely to Guyana’s development, and should therefore be treated better. “They don’t deserve that kind of treatment. The onus in on the current Administration to fix the situation,” he has declared.