Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar faces her first round of di­rect ques­tion­ing from the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment dur­ing this af­ter­noon’s Par­lia­ment sit­ting.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar will hold the spot­light in the Low­er House to­day pri­or to the mid-year re­view be­ing pre­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill 2025, list­ed on to­day’s agen­da, pro­pos­es to es­tab­lish a thresh­old for el­i­gi­bil­i­ty to ac­cess the pen­sion.

Ac­cord­ing to gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials yes­ter­day, the bill “sets pa­ra­me­ters and will pro­rate” the award of the pen­sion.

Ques­tions for the Prime Min­is­ter was a fea­ture in­tro­duced to the Par­lia­ment un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, tar­get­ing ad­di­tion­al ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and the role of the Par­lia­ment.

The idea of in­tro­duc­ing a Prime Min­is­ter’s “Ques­tion Time” (PMQ) was aired in a Par­lia­ment pub­li­ca­tion in mid-2013. This en­vi­sioned changes to the length and for­mats of both hous­es of Par­lia­ment, propos­ing the Prime Min­is­ter re­spond to Op­po­si­tion MPs’ ques­tions on any mat­ter.

Plans were con­cre­tised via a re­port on re­vi­sions to the Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Or­ders in 2013 when the rec­om­men­da­tion for PMQ pro­posed that ques­tions of 15 sec­onds in length of time be put to the Prime Min­is­ter for 30 min­utes dur­ing the sec­ond sit­ting each month. That would be about mat­ters of na­tion­al im­por­tance, or on gen­er­al per­for­mance of Gov­ern­ment/agen­cies. It was ap­proved in 2014.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials did not say if the pro­posed Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025 bill on the agen­da would be de­bat­ed to­day and if it would change/re­move/lim­it any pen­sion for any prime min­is­ter cur­rent­ly ex­ist­ing.

The cur­rent law—the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion Act—states that every­one ap­point­ed prime min­is­ter on or af­ter Au­gust 31, 1962, and ceas­ing af­ter such ap­point­ment to be PM shall be paid a pen­sion ef­fec­tive from the date on which they cease to hold the post, “and sub­ject to sub­sec­tion (2), the pen­sion shall con­tin­ue to be paid” dur­ing the per­son’s life­time.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, while in Op­po­si­tion in Jan­u­ary, had said if for­mer PM Stu­art Young “spent a few hours, days, weeks or months” as PM, de­spite nev­er be­ing elect­ed by cit­i­zens, and then ceas­es to be prime min­is­ter fol­low­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion, he’d still be en­ti­tled to a prime min­is­ter’s pen­sion for life. She said that would cost tax­pay­ers mil­lions, as Young would re­ceive a month­ly pen­sion ex­ceed­ing $87,847 for the rest of his life, amount­ing to over $1 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said un­der the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion Act, up­on ceas­ing to be prime min­is­ter, Young will re­ceive as his pen­sion, the cur­rent salary of the PM and hous­ing al­lowance. She not­ed that the law car­ried no qual­i­fy­ing age for the PM’s pen­sion and that Young, who was 49, would im­me­di­ate­ly be­come en­ti­tled to a prime min­is­ter’s pen­sion for life.

She said oth­er par­lia­men­tar­i­ans must com­plete a full term and reach the age of 55 to qual­i­fy for a pen­sion, while pub­lic ser­vice of­fi­cers and mem­bers of the pub­lic must be 60 and 65 years old, re­spec­tive­ly, to qual­i­fy.

Gov­ern­ment sources said the bill will like­ly ad­dress any loop­holes in the bill.

Al­so list­ed on to­day’s agen­da is the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s nom­i­na­tion of As­sis­tant Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Wayne Mys­tar to act in the of­fice of Deputy Com­mis­sion­er.

Fol­low­ing Mon­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee ex­er­cise—where $3.2B was ap­proved to sup­ple­ment the 2025 Bud­get to fund 28 di­vi­sions–the com­mit­tee’s re­port and a bill on this will be de­bat­ed in to­day’s mid-year re­view.