More than a year after a bill was passed to allow former mayor Hamilton Green to receive pension benefits, the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) is still funding the security services at his private residence.
This issue was raised by People’s Progressive Party/Civic councillor Bishram Kuppen at the last statutory meeting of the M&CC, last Monday. Kuppen noted that although the benefits of the Hamilton Green Pension Bill became effective on April 1 last year, a decision taken by the council to provide security services to Green until his “benefits issues” were resolved was never reversed.
“…I notice here there are still two guards posted there and we of course have been talking about the financial crisis that the city is in and I’m wondering when we will be pulling back those guards from the ex-mayor’s residence now that he is fully qualified for the benefits under a special act which was passed in parliament for his benefits,” Kuppen enquired.
Kuppen, in turn, was advised by Town Clerk Royston King that it was the council that had made the decision to allow the guards to continue their work, and so, it was the council that would have to vote to rescind same.
Last March, the government used its parliamentary majority to pass a controversial bill to confer Green with the pension package. The bill made it possible for him to receive almost $1.5 million a month in pension payments and other benefits for his tenure as Prime Minister, between 1985 and 1992, based on the salary of a current Prime Minister, as well as the full benefits of a former president, a position which he never held.
