Are we paying ineligible persons Old Age Pension?

Apr 29, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
It was the late Sheila Holder who raised this issue some four years ago but no action from the PPP. The PPP has failed to rectify this total breakdown in the system of Governance around the printing and issuance of Pension Books.
It was the Auditor General in his 2011 Report who expressed deep concern that the Ministry still has not corrected the deficiency in the contract to ensure “ownership and control of the printing software, and minimum security standards at the printing facility….” Again, no corrective action from the PPP.
Why is the printer still the sole custodian and controllers of the pension book printing template weeks and months after the completion of the process of printing of the pension books? Are we having rogue pension books in the system? Why are these templates not created by the Government, then deposited with the printer under State supervision and finally destroyed by the Government of Guyana? Why is the Government not the owners of the design software to print these pension books?
Further, why is the pensioners’ database not kept up to date? The Auditor General in his 2011 Report clearly outlined that “information such as serial numbers of the pension book and the month of the coupon was not maintained in the database for pensioners.”
We have to reflect on the high possibility that the information on the Ministry’s database is not an accurate reflection of the actual number of senior citizens in Guyana. The Minister of Finance in his 2013 Budget speech claims that there are some 42,000 pensioners, but is this accurate? The Bureau of Statistics reveals in its latest report that the number of persons over 65 years of age is 37.380. That is an inconsistency of 4,620 persons. Worst case scenario for this conflict in arithmetic is likely to cost the taxpayers G$555 million every year.
Ms. Sheila Holder had called for systemic audit to verify the pensioners’ database to ascertain if the number of pensioners in Guyana is really forty plus thousand persons, but as per norm, the PPP has something to cover up and thus no action. If these 4.620 persons are in existence, there is enough evidence to justify that they are either residing overseas or someone is illegally collecting the pensions on their behalf. Isn’t this a cause for a through audit investigation?
The criteria are clear – you must be a resident of Guyana to be eligible for old age pension.
Therefore that regulation must be enforced. The US Federal Government and other overseas Governments provides Social Security Supplement for all legal aliens over 65 years even though they did not work in those countries.
So it is tantamount to fraud to be double dipping, if some Guyanese are collecting a foreign pension and still want the Guyanese pension. What has the PPP done about this loss from the Treasury? If this G$555 million is plugged back into the pension of the real pensioners, they can benefit from some G$1,500 per month more on top of what they are collecting at present.
So the G$15,000 per months is highly possible but there is no political support for it from the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabal.
Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh

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Are we paying ineligible persons Old Age Pension?

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