Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025 was passed by Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) votes in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day.

Leg­is­la­tion re­quir­ing per­sons to serve at least one year as prime min­is­ter in or­der to qual­i­fy for a pen­sion was passed but Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MPs ab­stained from the vote.

The bill was passed at 5.58 pm to desk-thump­ing ap­proval from the Gov­ern­ment bench­es af­ter ear­li­er de­bate.

The bill al­so sought to in­tro­duce a four-tiered sys­tem where the longer a prime min­is­ter served, the more ben­e­fit they would re­ceive in pen­sion.

Pas­sage of the bill re­quired sup­port from three-fifths of the 41 MPs. It re­ceived more than the re­quired 24: a to­tal of 27 votes from the 25 UNC and two TPP MPs.

Ab­sent was Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo, who pre­sent­ed the bill ear­li­er. It was passed with­out amend­ments.

The PNM had sought re­moval of the clause that made the bill retroac­tive to March 10, 2025. It was re­quest­ed by PNM MP Kei­th Scot­land, but fol­low­ing query by Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein - it was not al­lowed as it was not pro­vid­ed in writ­ing.

PNM MPs de­clared “No!” to the bill’s oth­er claus­es.

As such, the bill will be re­mov­ing the pen­sion of for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who was ap­point­ed PM on March 17, 2025, fol­low­ing the March 16 res­ig­na­tion of for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley

Young was ab­sent from yes­ter­day’s de­bate as a form of protest.

The bill now has to be de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate.

Tan­coo, in pi­lot­ing the bill, said it is not ad hominem in na­ture (tar­get­ing a spe­cif­ic per­son). But Tan­coo slammed Young’s as­sump­tion to prime min­is­te­r­i­al of­fice.

He said pub­lic of­fi­cials are meant to serve the pub­lic and “not just them­selves. But for far too long, pub­lic of­fi­cials on the oth­er side have been serv­ing them­selves...”

Tan­coo added, “Re­cent­ly, we wit­nessed ac­tions that were un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, and which re­sult­ed in a prime min­is­ter that no one want­ed and one which this coun­try sub­se­quent­ly down­right ful­ly re­ject­ed.”

He said Young’s first act af­ter be­com­ing “un­elect­ed prime min­is­ter” was to call a snap elec­tion.

“Per­haps he count­ed on the fact that when the elec­tion bell was rung, there would be no more at­ten­tion to him­self as the un­elect­ed prime min­is­ter. Clear­ly, he ought to have known that these ac­tions would un­der­mine the Con­sti­tu­tion’s essence and in­tent. But he was wrong.”

“We must there­fore ac­cept that it’s there­fore high­ly ar­guable that the Ho­n­ourable Mem­ber for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West was nev­er el­i­gi­ble to be ap­point­ed prime min­is­ter by Her Ex­cel­len­cy pur­suant to sec­tion 76(1)(a) of the Con­sti­tu­tion. In short, that ap­point­ment as prime min­is­ter is most like­ly un­con­sti­tu­tion­al,” he added.

“But even if it was con­sti­tu­tion­al, I be­lieve that the (Pen­sions) Act should be brought in line with re­gion­al best prac­tice and our own leg­isla­tive pro­vi­sions. This fi­as­co has al­lowed Gov­ern­ment to bring for­ward mean­ing­ful leg­isla­tive re­form to amend the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion Act, Chap 2:51 that has been over­looked for many years.”

Ear­li­er, Tan­coo list­ed pen­sion laws for oth­er cat­e­gories - from MPs to po­lice - which al­so have a min­i­mum pe­ri­od of ser­vice. He said the bill was “the re­sult of the gen­uine need for re­form.”

He said, “This tiered sys­tem is fair, just and eq­ui­table - a clear and trans­par­ent man­ner for the prime min­is­ter to earn the jus­ti­fi­able and pro­por­tion­ate pen­sion that’s al­lo­cat­ed on the ba­sis of ser­vice - mer­i­toc­ra­cy.”

De­tail­ing its as­pect, he not­ed:

• For ser­vice of not less than 1 year but not more than 2 years, a pen­sion of of the high­est an­nu­al rate of salary paid as Prime Min­is­ter;

• Not less than 2 years but not more than 3 years, a pen­sion of ½ of the high­est an­nu­al rate of salary paid as Prime Min­is­ter;

• Not less than 3 years but not more than 4 years, a pen­sion of ¾ of the high­est an­nu­al rate of salary paid as Prime Min­is­ter;

• Not less than 4 years but not more than 5 years, a pen­sion of the full amount of the high­est an­nu­al rate of salary paid as Prime Min­is­ter.