(de Ware Tijd) PARAMARIBO – Senior citizens who receive their old-age pension from the Central Old-Age Pension Fund (AOV) no longer have to go through the annual registration and requirement to submit a Proof of Life document now that the Fund and the Central Bureau for Population Registry (CBB) have matched their data banks.
AOV director John Samson says that the cooperation between the two services must result in a better performance of both systems. On 29 February CBB director John Sahari and his counterpart at AOV decided to match their data banks after a painful incident when a senior citizen died at an AOV counter moments before he was to submit his Proof of Life document. The incident proved how laborious the process is for senior citizens to prove that they are still alive.
Before 2010, senior citizens had to report to the AOV office at least once a year for physical proof, but that was abandoned. The cooperation between CBB and AOV makes every other form of providing proof redundant because deaths have to be reported to the CBB offices almost immediately. The CBB will then relay this information to the AOV. Immediately after the matching, the registration of senior citizens at the banks was terminated. This is bliss for the very old and those that are sick or can barely walk.
