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Senior citizen claims racial discrimination
– says she is being denied her pension
Seventy-four year old Shahidan Azeez, of Cummings Street, Georgetown returned to Guyana in December last, after spending three years in the United States with relatives. In January of this year, she applied to the relevant authorities to receive her old age pension as a senior citizen of Guyana.
Azeez states that she was told that she would have to wait two years, because she had been living in the US and was a citizen there.
The tearful woman told this newspaper that this was not true. Azeez claims that she had left Guyana for personal reasons. With relatives living abroad, she had applied and was given a five year visa to the States and had spent three of those years there. She claims to have no US passport and denied that she is a citizen of the United States.
Shahidan Azeez
The woman states she returned here because Guyana is home and she did not like living in the US. “I born and grow up here. Me navel-string bury here. This is home,” she said tearfully, adding that she is now being denied her rights after going through so much living in Guyana.
Reflecting on the hard times during her life, the woman said she had to “weed Burnham yard to get some food.” She also told of the hard times she endured during the civil disturbances in the early and mid 1960’s.
Lamenting the decision made by the Pension Office, she also claimed racial discrimination by the officers working at the government agency. Azeez states that the officers there are of African descent and are only assisting persons of their own ethnicity. She has blamed the current administration for this situation, and reiterated tearfully that she is being deprived of what is rightfully hers. Azeez pointed out the fact that it is known that many Guyanese senior citizens who reside overseas are receiving their pension and other benefits that they are entitled to. “I thought racial discrimination finish! But they still have it!” she exclaimed. “I am not a resident of the US, I don’t have a US passport, my relatives are, not me,” she insisted adding, “I left here because my husband left me for a younger woman and she was causing problems. When he died I came back.”
Azeez is asking that the relevant authorities look at her case and ensure that she could access her pension at the earliest possible time. “I got to pay rates and taxes, water bill and light bill,” she stated.
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