Pay pension to all eligible and deserving including revolutionaries

Mar 01, 2021 Letters

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Dear Editor,
In reference to Freddie Kissoon’s column (Feb 21), I am shocked to learn that his wife, Janet, is not receiving a government pension.
The woman worked for a state company for more than the required (ten or 40 quarters) number of years. She put in fourteen years.
In America and other countries, Guyanese get a decent pension and health benefits after serving for ten years at a government job; pension is pro-rated based on term served.
In Guyana, a Member of Parliament gets a pension for serving a term; pension is prorated based on the number of years served and income. Burnham had created teenage (youthful) pensioners – any MP regardless of age who served briefly in parliament. Some of them had just crossed twenty years when they became eligible for a pension.
(In America, government employee must be no younger than 55 to get a pension). After Burnham and Hoyte, pension qualifications were streamlined with minimum requisites.
Several former MPs (who served as Ministers or PS or Speakers) are currently receiving an average of $450K monthly.
Those who served a term get about $100K if not a Minister.
If someone who served as a MP, a part time undertaking, can qualify for a pension, why can’t Freddie’s wife who served fourteen years, full time, be eligible for a pension.
Something stinks about state pension rule.
Janet should file a court case. In a white man’s court, she would definitely win. She is treated unfairly to those ‘korhee’ MPs.
She is more deserving of a pension than those lazy MPs, especially some of them who disgraced parliament last Monday. Freddie’s wife did much more than any MP whose job is to come to parliament occasionally for a few hours for some weeks of the year and enjoy all kinds of perks like free transportation, housing, meals, phone service, etc.
Those who served in government positions (Regional Councillors, NDA representatives included) as staff or any other capacity (working for a state entity) should also be entitled for a state pension based on years served.
Thus, I am in agreement with Freddie that Balram Singh Rai should get his pension; a bill should be legislated to grant him his pension. Separately, Isahak Bashir was penalized of his rightful pension amount because he was suspended from parliament by Sase Narain. That Speaker and others occupied positions for which they were not entitled; they were not duly elected by the population.
It is well documented that elections were rigged between 1966 and 1992. Most of those who served as ruling party MPs illegally occupied their post; they lacked moral right to dictate who qualified for a pension since they themselves did not qualify for theirs.
Those who fought against the authoritarian government, like Eusi Kwayana, Clive Thomas, Patricia Rodney, David Hinds, Arjune Karshan, Baytoram Ramharack, Wazir Mohammed, Paul Tennassee, Donald Rodney, Ogunseye, among others, who are not currently recipients of state parliamentary pension, should also be eligible to receive some kind of “state compensation” for their service to liberate the nation. South Africa adopted this principle granting pension to those revolutionaries who actively participated in the struggle to liberate the nation from apartheid rule.
Those revolutionaries were not elected to parliament or served in state employment but were treated accordingly for time served while fighting for the liberation of the nation.
They gave their life to the freedom movement and were justly rewarded.
They may have been elected serving in parliament if the apartheid system had not excluded them. Similarly, Burnham ran a racist authoritarian political system that prevented revolutionaries from getting elected as a result of his fraudulent elections.
The revolutionaries may very well have been elected to parliament and serving in government or some other government position entitling them to a state pension.
It is only fair that the Guyanese revolutionaries be compensated, for giving their life to the struggle, with some kind of benefits in service to freeing the nation of Burnhamism.
Those who were instrumental in rigging elections should not get pension and whatever pension they currently receive should be discontinued, and they should be prosecuted.
Anyone who served the state (or any of its agencies) in any capacity as diplomats, MPs, in media, laborer, etc. entitles them to a pension. That is the rule in any developed (white man) country, including the imperialist (blood sucking as Burnham and Jagan used to call them) countries.
Since Guyana is a socialist, working class haven, a utopia, why can’t all workers who served the state get a pension like the MPs do?
Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram

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