The pension that President Bharrat Jagdeo will earn upon demitting office has become a hot topic on the election campaign trail for the opposition parties and the incumbent PPP/C is not happy at what it says are the lies and misrepresentations on the matter.
The PPP, in a release on Friday, accused members and leaders of the AFC of “making false and libelous statements aimed at the good reputation of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and the PPP/C government”. Further, the PPP criticized the AFC for an advertisement it aired regarding the President’s pension benefits. The advertisement in question, Stabroek News was told, is a 10-second ad which says that the President will earn a pension of $3 million monthly, while ordinary citizens of pensionable age receive $7,500 per month.
According to the PPP, the AFC advertisement “grossly misrepresents the pension benefits of the president and is intended only to mislead the people of Guyana”. The party also indicated that the pension benefits that Jagdeo will benefit from have already been enjoyed by a past president—the PPP, however, did not identify the past president.
“This wicked and shameless campaign of the AFC is akin to that of the PNC/ APNU painting the administration and the PPP of being corrupt,” the PPP charged.
PPP/C campaign spokes-person Robert Persaud, when contacted by this newspaper, said that the advertisement by the AFC reflected the misinformation the party has been peddling at its political meetings. He said the party was “creating the impression that the president’s pension is exorbitant”. The figures mentioned by the AFC in the advertisement are “outright lies,” he said, saying that it was clear that the opposition party had deviated from basing its campaign on policy issues. Persaud said that the same could be said of some of the advertisements being run by opposition coalition APNU. He pointed specifically to the advertisement which had a picture of a large house. This house in the advertisement is said to be President’s Jagdeo house that is currently being constructed in ‘Pradoville 2.’
Persaud also said that the media houses, in carrying these advertisements, were breaching the Media Code of Conduct. He said that this was something that the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) would have to look into, saying that his party’s role was just to highlight these issues. Persaud pledged that the PPP/C will not be affected by the attempts by the AFC and APNU and said it will remain focused on the task ahead.
AFC campaign director Salim Nausrudeen, when contacted, stood by the advertisement saying that there was nothing dishonest about it. He said that the PPP had been peddling a lot of untruths about the AFC. “Tell the PPP tough luck,” he said.
The party’s presidential candidate Khemraj Ramjattan, meanwhile, called on the government to compute the president’s pension to dispute what his party has outlined in the advertisement. “Let them put a value. Are they going to tell us it is $2,999,000 instead of $3 million?” he asked, while referring to the benefits outlined in the Former Presidents (Benefits and Other Facilities) Bill, which was passed in the National Assembly in April 2009, despite the strong objections from the parliamentary opposition.
He said “it is a shame and disgrace” for the president to be having a pension of $100,000 a day at the age of 47, when the ordinary cane farmer, if he is lucky to reach 65, earns a pension of $250 a day. He said too that when Sam Hinds, eventually retires, he too will benefit from the benefits outlined in the bill.
An AFC government, he said, would immediately repeal this legislation when it gets into office.
When reached for comment, APNU’s prime ministerial candidate Dr Rupert Roopnaraine said that theopposition coalition stood by its ad, which is an attempt to highlight the manner in which the elite in the country have been living while others have been suffering. He stressed that there exists in Guyana an “unacceptably” high percentage of the population living in poverty, noting that the gap between the rich and poor is wider than it has ever been.
He said it is well known that the President, when he demits office, will receive over $3 million monthly—which he indicated would be more than what US President Barack Obama will benefit from when his presidential tenure is over. “We are too poor a country for that extravagance,” he said, adding that an APNU government will scrap the piece of legislation.
When this newspaper questioned Ramotar on the benefits legislation in April, he said that it would continue to stir debate. He indicated though that changing the law would not be among his priorities. “I haven’t really gone into it… [but] is it a big issue? Is it the most pressing thing to do? Is it more important than getting hydropower? Is it more important than many of these things?” Ramotar asked rhetorically.
After the bill was passed and enacted, Jagdeo fended off criticisms of the legislation, saying the benefits outlined had been enshrined in law to ensure transparency about the entitlements, almost all of which had been enjoyed by his predecessors. “Almost ninety-nine per cent of the provisions were already enjoyed by former presidents and this is what I have found hypocritical,” he said of the criticism of the Former Presidents (Benefits and Other Facilities) Act, adding later, “I don’t know if it’s excessive, but that was what was there all along.” He said that late former presidents Desmond Hoyte and Janet Jagan benefited from similar concessions, by custom and practice.
In April of this year, Alissa Trotz, the editor of the Diaspora column which appears weekly in the Stabroek News, commented on the extravagance of the president’s pension benefits. She noted that in addition to a tax free pension, the President during the remainder of his lifetime, will be entitled to: payment of water, electricity and telephone bills at his place of residence, services of personal and household staff including but not limited to an attendant and gardener as well as free medical treatment or reimbursement of medical expenses incurred by him for his own treatment or treatment of dependents. In addition, the president will benefit from full-time personal security and services of the Presidential Guard Service at his place of residence, the provision of an unspecified number of motor vehicles owned and maintained by the State, toll free transportation in Guyana, annual vacation allowance equivalent to the cost of two first class return airfares and tax exemption status identical to that enjoyed by a serving president.
She noted that the entitlements enshrined in the legislation far exceeded those that former US presidents and other heads of state in the region received.
