While the Ministry of Social Protection yesterday said that it holds firm to the commitment that Guyanese living overseas will not benefit from an old age pension here, the opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) says the decision clashes with the constitution.
“The Guyana constitution says you are Guyanese whether you live here or not … therefore Minister Volda (Lawrence) is creating a constitutional conundrum,” PPP’s executive and Parliamentary Chief Whip, Gail Teixeira told a press conference yesterday.
Minister of Social Protection, Lawrence on Thursday said that her ministry will be putting measures in place to ensure Guyanese who live in other countries, do not access an old age pension here and yesterday explained that she specifically meant old age and not other pensions.
“The Ministry of Social Protection wishes to clarify that Old Age Pension is different from Government Pension and National Insurance Scheme Pension,” a statement from the Ministry asserted yesterday.
“The Ministry of Social Protection therefore wishes to reiterate that persons will only be eligible for Old Age Pension if they satisfy the age, citizenry and residency requirements,” the correspondence went on state, after an explanation of the criteria for qualification by seniors.
The Ministry argued that Old Age Pension is not an entitlement from employment, as in the case of Government Pension and National Insurance Scheme Pension, as it is a monthly payment ($18,200 at present), available to eligible Guyanese aged 65 or older.
“It is provided for under the Old Age Pension Act (Chapter 36:03), which clearly states that applicants must meet certain statutory conditions to qualify for Old Age Pension. These statutory conditions are: the person must have attained the age of sixty-five years; the person must satisfy the appropriate authority that s/he has been a citizen of Guyana for at least ten years immediately preceding his [her] claim for a pension, the person must have been ordinarily resident in Guyana during the twenty years immediately preceding his [her] claim for pension,” the ministry says.
“In the event that the person is temporarily absent from Guyana, the applicant or pensioner must satisfy the Authority, usually through the provision of the person’s passport and an immigration check conducted by the Ministry, that the period of absence from Guyana has not exceeded two years during the past twenty years, according to law. Persons receiving Old Age Pension may become ineligible if that person is a resident in a charitable institution that provides board and lodging; is in prison or has migrated”. It is in this context, the statement said that Lawrence has sought to reinforce the laws, adding, that persons “whether they worked in Guyana or not, who are now living overseas are ineligible for Old Age Pension in Guyana”.
Further, Lawrence’s ministry stated that policies followed by both her government and its predecessor, the PPP/C, dictated that persons applying for Old Age Pension must have been living in Guyana for at least two years preceding their application.
“It is precisely this approach that was highlighted by the recently conducted audit as erroneous, since the law actually prescribes that the Old Age Pension applicant `must have been ordinarily resident in Guyana during the twenty years immediately preceding his [her] claim for pension’, a finding that was publicised by the local media,” the ministry statement said.
But the PPP says that there might be a different interpretation of the law, because as they understand it citizens living in or out of the country qualify for old age pension.
“First of all one’s pension in Guyana is protected in the constitution for contributions made as an employee. That cannot be touched. Ditto in other countries. Therefore if a Guyanese as defined in the constitution earned their pension in another country it cannot be considered double dipping if they apply and are approved for the non- contributing old age pension in Guyana which is provided for under the Poor Relief Law,” she said.
Teixeira also pointed out as an example, a citizen living overseas who wants to attend the University of Guyana. She said that because of the law that person will be granted fees as per citizens.
‘Citizens who served’
Further, she argued that a decision to abruptly take away the old age pension from some, without due analysis of statistics of what impact it has had on the economy was not validated by government. Said Teixeira “I would assume that the minister making such a leap, such a grand announcement, would have been able to say to the public ‘Look, of these X thousands of old age pensions we give out, 20% or 30% are non-resident and we want to change it’. There is no such validation to verify such an action being done.
“A lot of the older generation come back home because they have some pension they can live on from overseas. They come back home, they like the weather they don’t want to go through the cold weather particularly north and they can live comfortably and they get their lil old age pensions (here). They are not getting it illegally, they are not thieving, they apply they are tested and whatever criteria and they get it. But they do have to go overseas every six months because they do have to keep their status to get their social security”, the PPP executive stressed
“Why would u wanna trouble these people? They have served in this country, they would have served us. Many are public servants who served this country but went abroad and come back to access their public service pensions, their NIS why would you want to interfere with this group?” she questioned.
Similarly, Teixeira pointed to nationals who live on the country’s border and who Lawrence referred to as “double dipping” by collecting pensions from two states, saying that no data was taken to ascertain how many benefitted. She believes that it is just a small percentage of Amerindians, many who work also in neighbouring countries such as Brazil.
“Why would you want to interfere with these people on the borders getting assistance from Brazil? What is the percentage? Is it 100 or 1000 what is the amount? Because it isn’t a large amount”, she said.
The Social Protection Ministry plans to also soon digitise its pension system to make it more efficient in identifying redundancies in the system and identifying persons on the database who authorise persons to collect their pensions, to serve as an indication that they are not in Guyana.
