Sacrificing skills at the altar of age

Nov 14, 2013 Editorial

Earlier this year, we published this editorial that examined the age of retirement. The situation has not changed, especially more recently when it was argued that Guyana was not developing the skills it needed fast enough.
Two groups of people, one group working with the former Guyana Telecommunications Corporation and the other with the Ministry of Education, found that their skills were needed but that the administration was not prepared to use them either through spite or because it felt that the people should not be paid the kind of money they actually deserve.
Today we revisit that editorial.
For years now Guyanese have been contending that the age of retirement should be raised. Public servants retire at 55, members of the Judiciary retire at 60, and still a few others are allowed to retire at 65.
This has been the case for years but these days with people living longer and given the brain drain that has been robbing the country of its skills there is this call for the age of retirement to be raised. We have seen the government being forced to rehire retired persons because there are simply not enough of skilled people to undertake certain duties within the public service.
One classic case is that of the legal draughtsman. Mr Cecil Dhurjon is into his eighties but he is not allowed to retire because he simply does not have a replacement. He had offered to retire on a few occasions but the administration begged him to stay on and he has.
What is interesting, though, is the fact that the government through its Presidential Advisor on Governance, Gail Teixeira, concluding that the society does not want the retirement age to change. She is basing her contention on the fact that people simply do not want to wait until age 65 to collect their National Insurance Scheme old age pension.
When the scheme came into existence in 1969, the architects recognized that the age of retirement was 55 so they concluded that five years after retirement the individual would begin to collect his old age pension. And indeed, because of the nature of the society people who attained the age of 60 were made to feel old.
Indeed, there were those who simply left the public service and plied their trade in the private sector. But back then there was no paucity of skills so the older person had to make way for the younger generation.
A recent survey found that Guyana has lost about eighty per cent of its university graduates and those from the other tertiary institutions. It has already lost almost all of its skilled teachers and nurses to the extent that the recruits are being asked to undertake jobs way beyond them. The result is substandard delivery to the extent that there has been a mad drive to offer contracts to people who have already retired.
It was the then President Bharrat Jagdeo who when asked about the need to recruit foreigners when there was a need to reroute the sewerage in the vicinity of the Pegasus, said that Guyana had lost its capacity to do the job. This was not necessarily true because that was a job to could have been undertaken by a number of contractors.
Ms. Teixeira, responding to a question in parliament, recently, spoke of the rejection of the decision that would allow people to collect their NIS old age pension at age 65. She said that this rejection is a clear indication that people are happy to retire at 55. But the truth is that people look forward to what they consider their money having made their contributions over the years. It has nothing to do with the age of retirement.
Were the government to conduct a referendum to ascertain what the age of retirement should be it might find a very interesting development. The issue of the NIS and the recommendations by the Actuary should not be confused with an adjustment in the age of retirement. (to be continued)

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Sacrificing skills at the altar of age

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