New regime must revisit the President’s pension, grant Varshnie Singh a First Lady benefits

Nov 15, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I believe every President, along with every elected official, is entitled to a retirement package since serving in an elected office is a job.
In retrospect, the late Forbes Burnham, the longest serving Guyanese leader (21 years), never catered for his demission from office and never saw the need for a retirement package to be legislated.
His successor, the late Desmond Hoyte, was more publicly focused on trying to win the 1992 election and any talk at that time about a pension package would have sent a message he expected to lose.
After 1992, the late Cheddi Jagan was more focused on trying to get his government up and running and barely had extra time for anything else. He suffered a massive heart attack in 1997 that subsequently proved fatal. And the late Janet Jagan was too busy trying to keep the PPP in power against the PNC’s mounting street protests to even be thinking about a retirement package legislation.
The concept of a retirement package then fell to this lame duck President, but it actually came from requests by public-spirited Guyanese concerned about cost of living support for widows of former Presidents. While the President must be complimented for responding, albeit grudgingly, when the assistance package became law in May 2009, it had attached to it the now controversial President’s pension benefits package.
It was a slick move that most have ignored until now as the President gets ready to demit office and the inexplicable costs of his pension have become a public issue.
The public is fairly questioning the estimated costs of President’s pension benefits, but does the public know how much money the government is spending  annually on the Opposition Leader’s office benefits package, itemized somewhat like that of the President’s pension package?
Shortly after Hoyte died in December 2002, his successor Mr. Robert Corbin asked for government financing of the office of the Opposition Leader. I am not going to detail the specifics of the Opposition Leader’s benefits package, which became law in April 9, 2010, but for five years prior, Mr. Corbin received a government financed benefits package for his elected office.
Though he did create a stir at the passage of the President’s package, Mr. Corbin has been MIA (missing in action) and deafeningly silent among those now creating a ruckus over the President’s pension package.
The President’s dilemma here is not what he did for himself or even for the Opposition Leader, whose beleaguered status at one time he was concerned about, but the manner in which he did it all- the lack of transparency in the details. No figures are forthcoming.
For example, Dr. Nanda Gopaul’s letter to Stabroek News, (“Benefits received by former presidents and widows following passing of Act No 8, 2009,” November 13), detailed how much the government spent on the ex-Presidents and their widows, but where are the details of projected estimates for the President’s pension benefits?
We have also been told the President’s actual pension would be about seven-eighths of his current salary, but seven-eighths of what? Why are the income and pension benefits of a person elected by the people to serve the people a big secret?
Heck, why is there so much secrecy surrounding everything and anything when it comes to, in this government, the people’s funds and resources? Again, it is not what the President has done, but how he went about doing it.
And speaking about how he went about doing it, I share the general sentiment that the President’s decision to deny his ex-wife state benefits smacks of a lack of sensitivity and sheer vindictiveness. It will not be his money that would be paying her anyway!
I do recall reading where his ex-wife did agree to a lump sum separation settlement of $5M or US$25,000 and as she said in her released statement after January 9, 2009, because of his unlimited executive powers as President it did not make sense entering into a lengthy legal battle with him.
But as President, in 1998 he gave the nation and the rest of the world the impression he was married and he admittedly lived with the woman for almost 11 years, reportedly asking her to move out from State House in January 2009.
In today’s world, even without a wedding ceremony, this woman would be considered a common-law wife and entitled to half of whatever was acquired during that period.
Was the President worth only $10M at the time of his separation from his ex-wife? If so, where did he get money from to build a US$100,000 ($20M) mansion in 2007 that he subsequently sold for US$600,000 (120M) in July 2010?
If plans for that mansion were drafted during the time he lived with his ex-wife, is she not entitled to a part of the US$500,000 profit he made on sale of said mansion?
Since he obviously doesn’t want to the state to give Ms. Singh anything, then the next government should do the right thing and pass an amended piece of legislation that would allow Ms. Singh to be entitled to the benefits of an ex-wife of an ex-President.
And since the PPP has endorsed the President’s pension benefits, then the next government to make the amendment possible must be completely led by a new party.
On November 28, Guyanese voters must also vote for a government that will revisit the President’s pension package and let the nation know the financial details up front. End the secrecy and corruption!
Emile Mervin

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