Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to in­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion that will change and, in some cas­es, dis­qual­i­fy el­der­ly peo­ple who reach the age of 65 from ac­cess­ing the se­nior cit­i­zens’ pen­sion, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is warn­ing cit­i­zens.

On De­cem­ber 9, a bill ti­tled The Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ Pen­sion and Pub­lic As­sis­tance) Bill, 2024, was laid in Par­lia­ment. A ma­jor amend­ment is be­ing pro­posed in the bill which dis­qual­i­fies per­sons with sav­ings in the bank ex­ceed­ing $25,000 from ac­cess­ing the old age pen­sion.

Sec­tion 4 (g) of the bill states, “An in­di­vid­ual shall not be el­i­gi­ble to re­ceive a pen­sion un­less he: has sav­ings not ex­ceed­ing twen­ty-five thou­sand dol­lars.”

Cur­rent­ly, while the sub­mis­sion of bank de­tails is a pre­req­ui­site to ap­ply­ing for the se­nior cit­i­zens’ pen­sion, there is no lim­it on how much mon­ey the ap­pli­cant has in their ac­counts, nor does the amount dis­qual­i­fy the ap­pli­cant from ac­cess­ing the grant.

Speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ cot­tage meet­ing at its Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters on Mon­day night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar raised the is­sue, as she warned, “That bill will make it hard­er for pen­sion­ers and per­sons get­ting pub­lic as­sis­tance to ac­cess those grants. They are mon­i­tor­ing how much mon­ey you have in the bank, that is what they are go­ing to do, that’s what this bill is telling us.”

She told sup­port­ers that this was the same Gov­ern­ment that re­moved sev­er­al peo­ple from re­ceiv­ing food cards while ac­cept­ing huge pay rais­es, re­cent­ly rec­om­mend­ed by the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC).

How­ev­er, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Min­is­ter Don­na Cox yes­ter­day de­fend­ed the bill, which is in her name, say­ing its pur­pose is to pro­tect the el­der­ly from abuse and to en­sure that those who de­serve the pen­sion can ac­cess it.

Ex­plain­ing why the $25,000 cap is be­ing pro­posed, Min­is­ter Cox told Guardian Me­dia, “What we have found is that there are many peo­ple with a lot of mon­ey who trans­fer all their busi­ness and every­thing out of their hands in­to their fam­i­lies’ hands to col­lect a pen­sion. So, what we are try­ing to do is block some of the loop­holes where peo­ple who are not poor and vul­ner­a­ble but come and ap­ply for pen­sions.”

She added, “The pen­sion is not for abuse be­cause it’s tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey. This is non-con­tribu­tary, it is some­thing to help peo­ple who are poor and vul­ner­a­ble. There are many per­sons who live on their pen­sion be­cause they have nev­er worked in their lives or their chil­dren are not tak­ing care of them. Those peo­ple are who the pen­sion is for, not for peo­ple who have mon­ey and still feel they should get the pen­sion.”

The min­is­ter said cur­rent­ly, 109,000 peo­ple re­ceive a se­nior cit­i­zens’ pen­sion. She sought to as­sure the pub­lic that the bill will not im­pact those who al­ready re­ceive a pen­sion.

“We are not go­ing back to check on peo­ple to say we want to see your bank ac­counts now, you are al­ready get­ting pen­sion al­ready. It is not that with this new leg­is­la­tion, we are go­ing back to say your moth­er sup­posed to have this or that. No, just mov­ing for­ward, we are pro­tect­ing the el­der­ly to make sure all who need it, get it. It is not about tak­ing peo­ple off at all or else we’d have put retroac­tive in the bill,” Cox ex­plained.

But Guardian Me­dia chal­lenged the min­is­ter on the new amend­ment which dis­qual­i­fies those with over $25,000 in the bank. She was asked if that sum was too lit­tle to de­ter­mine that an ap­pli­cant is not in need of the month­ly $3,500 pen­sion.

To this, Cox said, “The point about it is that the pen­sion is for the poor, it have peo­ple who do not have $1,000 in the bank. That is who the pen­sion is for. Pen­sion is not for peo­ple who re­ceiv­ing mon­ey some­where. If you have a whole set of mon­ey in the bank, why do you need a pen­sion?

“A pen­sion is not in­tend­ed to to­tal­ly mind some­one, it is as­sis­tance, a gov­ern­ment pen­sion, re­mem­ber they don’t con­tribute to it at all. It is not an au­to­mat­ic and that is what peo­ple don’t un­der­stand, there’s a process. It has been so for years.”

She ac­cused the UNC of at­tempt­ing to sen­sa­tion­alise the is­sue, while ig­nor­ing the pos­i­tives that the bill will bring.

Cox said the bill will al­so em­pow­er the State to take ac­tion against peo­ple who col­lect pen­sion cheques on be­half of the el­der­ly but fail to use the mon­ey for its in­tend­ed pur­pose.

“We have found a lot of el­der abuse tak­ing place and we put in a whole sec­tion on that. We have found old peo­ple in homes or liv­ing by them­selves and they are re­ceiv­ing a pen­sion; who is get­ting the pen­sion?” she ex­plained.

“We re­alise, with peo­ple who have de­men­tia, some­times the fam­i­ly is spend­ing their mon­ey, not liv­ing there and not pro­vid­ing prop­er food­stuff, we re­cent­ly found a man go­ing through that. But we had no au­thor­i­ty to deal with that, so this is giv­ing the au­thor­i­ty to be able to pro­tect the old­er peo­ple.”

The min­is­ter un­der­scored that these mea­sures are not be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to re­move peo­ple from the list of re­cip­i­ents but rather to pro­tect them.

Cox could not say when the bill would be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment, not­ing that is up to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to de­cide.