APNU leaders say the coalition was forced to accept the increase of the old age pension to $10,000 as a trade-off during negotiations with government last week.
“Our position is $15,000 (and) in the process of negotiations we agreed to accept a lower figure. In negotiations, everybody can’t come out with what they ask for,” APNU and opposition leader David Granger said during a press conference held at his Hadfield Street Office yesterday.
Granger and APNU Lance Carberry and Carl Greenidge were grilled on why the lower figure was accepted.
Carberry said that the opposition coalition is negotiating a range of issues that are intended to benefit the people. “We are talking about reducing the Value Added Tax, increasing public assistance and so on and therefore in a negotiation, you have to trade off. We still feel that the old age pension should be $15,000. That is our position. But we also recognise that we also have to try to find arrangements that would satisfy a wider range of concerns not just pension,” he stressed.
“It is a package that you are seeking to achieve in terms of your negotiations… You don’t always get everything that you want but you try to be able to balance it, so that in fact the package that comes out is beneficial to the public that you are trying to serve,” Carberry added.
In his budget presentation last month, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh had announced that the old age pension would move from $7,500 per month to $8,100 per month from May 1, 2012. This increase had been soundly criticised by the opposition parties and members of the public. The figure will now rise by a further $1900, following private talks between an APNU delegation and government. The opposition team comprised Granger and APNU MPs Greenidge and Dr Rupert Roopnaraine. There was no representative from AFC at the meeting, for which APNU has been criticised.
