PM proposes no pension hike for UNC MPs

THE Prime Minister yesterday promised to amend a bill which raises the pensions of top public officials to propose the hike not be given to Opposition MPs.

Dr Rowley said, “Since it is being put out that we are particularly greedy and that the Opposition doesn’t want ant part of it not now or whenever they come into office, I have drafted an amendment which I will attach and circulate.”

Rowley told the House of Representatives that at committee stage, he would ask Opposition MPs to agree to enact into law a promise to not accept any increase or improvement in pension.

“Don’t get up and say you don’t want it. Don’t get up here and play ‘bravay dajay’ saying you don’t want it, knowing full well that when it is passed by the Government who you are beating it was passed for you too.

“Put a clause in their saying you reject it by a clause in the law, and we’ll pass it later this evening.”

Government MPs grinned and pounded their desks in support.

“That is the only way you will not be beneficiaries. I’d not be surprised if some of you do that because you have already taken care of yourselves.”

Rowley urged that it was better for public officials to be properly paid a pension rather that the alternatives of being left in poverty or opting to steal.

He said former chief justice the late Clinton Bernard and former government minister John Eckstein had served the country well but then could not pay their medical bills and die in dignity.

Rowley recalled a top public official once contemplating suicide due to poverty in his old age, but a friend talked him out of it while another friend helped him financially. “People who give their life to Trinidad ought not to see that.”