Pay the elderly a pension of $60,000, the minimum wage equivalent

Sep 16, 2023 Letters

Dear Editor,

The Government of Guyana promises to increase the pension by $7,000 by 2025 and the ‘Because We Care’ Grant by $10,000 which is good.

This promise above for pensioners is disturbing and brings vexation to the mind, and forces me to ask the question, what kind of government would want to only give a pensioner who is 65 years old and over $7,000 more on the 30,000 a month pension?

The government needs to do far better than this, if we can increase our budget for this year by over 100 billion taking this year’s budget from 781.9 billion to over 881.9 billion why our government cannot give a better raise in pensions? How could a human live off $1,216 a day at an old age in 2025 when the cost of living is climbing to an unrealistic level? Pensioners need to be paid the present national minimum wage, of $60,000 a month; they have a right to live comfortably before the reality of life comes around at their older age. Most of the pensioner’s children and family are feeling the hardship of life and sometimes cannot afford to cover their expenses of paying rent or mortgage and other expenses, while children would like to do good for their elderly, sometimes it can become very hard.

By 2025, Guyana should be receiving about 11 billion USD a year in total revenue, which will be equivalent to about 2.2 trillion Guyana dollars. Pay our pensioners the national minimum wage of $60,000 a month, when multiplied by 65,000 pensioners is 3.9 billion a month, $ 46.8 billion a year, this is about 2.2% of the revenue expected to be received in 2025. Pushing an additional 24.4 billion into the elderly hands will make them less dependent on families who are already having a hard time and more cash circulation in communities. This money can be easily found by trimming out bad and excessive projects, which are not an immediate need.

Even though we need infrastructure development for our country to move forward, we still have to look at the elderly care and finance for them. They had contributed directly or indirectly in many ways to keep this country up and running. Trying to build Guyana overnight with unskilled contractors is costing us billions of dollars already. When we wake up to the failure and waste of money that could have been spent in the area of human support development, we will say if we did know we would have done the right thing.

I am calling on the government to pay the pensioners $60,000 a month immediately if you as the government can request a hundred billion more for infrastructure and other costs, why cannot we apply for $24B? The State can afford to increase old age pensions. Let it be done, so our senior citizens can enjoy some of the oil money before the reality of life comes around. Remember, many of them may not be around when this country is fully developed, so be kind to them now, as a human who has a love for his fellow humans.

Sincerely,

Michael Carrington

People’s Development Movement

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Because We Care’ Grant, Government, human, Michael Carrington, People's Development Movement

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