Latest update December 23rd, 2024 3:40 AM
Old age pension increase can only buy five mints per day – MP tells Parliament
APNU Parliamentarian, Natasha Singh- Lewis
Kaieteur News – A Partnership For National Unity (APNU) Parliamentarian, Natasha Singh- Lewis has described the $3000 increase for old age pension listed in the 2024 Budget as not only pitiful and insignificant but it is equivalent to the purchase of five chick mints per day.
The Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) made this deduction during her contribution to the national budget debates at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on Thursday.
Highlighting what she called cosmetic measures to cater to the poor and working-class people of Guyana, Singh-Lewis questioned the authenticity of the reliefs listed the 2024 budget. “These are mere cosmetic measures nothing of substance that will address the genuine concerns of ordinary people. Upon scrutinizing this budget, it became increasingly apparent that the government is navigating a path detached from the genuine needs and struggles of our people,” the MP said.
She continued “The budget evokes a melody of a composition that fails to strike a chord with the soul of the average people harmonizing more with the interest of a privileged few rather than addressing the pressing concerns of the working-class Guyanese.”
To this end, Singh-Lewis noted that increase for pensioners and relief for those in need of social assistance is not close to enough to offset the burdens of a high cost of living. “Mr. Speaker, pensioners were granted a 3000 increase which works out to approximately 100 per day… One chick mint is $20. This is what the pensioners will get with that increase every single day, five chick mints…”
As such, the MP reason that the increase is essentially equivalent to no increase at all. Turning her attention to the management of the agency, the MP pointed to the high staff turnover at Ministry of Human Services.
The MP noted “Qualified staff at the Ministry of Human Services is leaving because of incompetence and nepotism…Sir let me remind this house that the staff of the Ministry in 2022 wrote a letter demanding that the minister should resign because of her policies of discrimination…”
“There is a high turnover of technical staff who are leaving … the childcare and protection staff are leaving at an alarming rate in some regions, over 80 percent of the staff left and, in some regions, there are reports of over 3000 cases of child abuse. In Region one, there is only one Childcare and Protection Officer.”
She reasoned that for a country with the highest GDP per capita, we should be able to handle our social issues adequately. In response, Minister of Human Service, Dr. Vindhya Persaud noted that the government has a robust plan to address these issues.
She noted that the Government will among other things, be injecting some $63 million of its budgetary allocation for social services for the construction of a much-needed juvenile justice processing centre. “Young people may come into conflict with the law and we want to give them a second chance, we want to make sure they are dealt with in accordance with the Juvenile Justice Act and that Act provides for us to deal with these young people very differently.
The juvenile justice processing centre will be built for $63 million in Region Four catering to the needs of our juveniles,” she elaborated. Further, the minister noted that over 100 ex-prisoners and their families will also benefit from this through the ministry’s budgetary allocations.
“The work that we do speaks for itself and I also believe that our young people should be very familiar with what this government is doing for them,” she said. The minister reiterated the government’s long-standing commitment to providing much-needed support for the improved livelihood of the nation’s youths.
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