Unlimited Benefits for Former Presidents -Pt III

By GHK Lall- This is the third go at the unlimited benefits bill for former presidents introduced by the PPP Govt in parliament. Three expresses anger. I let the facts and numbers speak. Guyanese get to think, decide. Differing is fine. No explanations needed. Commentary follows after each fact.

Fact One: former presidents currently receive a monthly pension of $2.2 million each.

Fact Two: that’s approx. 22 times the minimum wage of entry level public servants; over 30 times the minimum wage of private sector workers. It baffles how minimum wage Guyanese workers manage. What’s left to say? The PPP Govt resists addressing the three-year-old private sector monthly minimum wage of $60,147. But it has the energy to address unlimited benefits for four former presidents, and one more in four years. Is this parliamentary bill more for the four, or more for one? The former president-to-be stands to be the biggest beneficiary. He would have more years ahead.

Fact Three: The PPP Govt pushes Guyanese to open bank accounts. I laud. It pushes them to save. More cheering. The questions are how to save, and save what? Thousands of Guyanese, likely hundreds of thousands, exist in close to crisis conditions. They are forced to barter, borrow, even beg to survive. Save what, when they are always in debt, always paying back, always catching up? Instead of facing a bank teller to make a deposit, they are facing a pawnbroker, with whatever’s left to exchange for desperately needed cash. Fortunately, not one of Guyana’s four former president is in any of those boats. They spend; they can still save. So why more for those with so much, compliments of Guyanese taxpayers? It’s a debate unworthy of one word for, even against.

Fact Four: each former president employs three fully paid ‘house’ workers (max) on taxpayers’ dollar. Using the public service baseline of $100,000 per month per worker, this benefit to each of Guyana’s former presidents totals $300,000 monthly. Examine that compressed $300,000 number, fact. Half of those allowances could help lift (limitedly) Guyanese from where they are financially imprisoned, tortured ruthlessly.

No one should ask by whom. Half of the workers’ wage allowances for four former presidents ($600,000) could make a four-member Guyanese family live at some halfway decent level. They have to scramble, make do, with a third, even 50 percent, less than the workers’ allowances for these four Guyanese. There’s no dispute with them. No wish to take bread from their mouths. I recommend that citizens be polled with two questions: Unlimited benefits -yes or no? Will accept or reject?

Fact Five: there’s $25,000 each for utilities: water, electricity, telephone. When only that $75,000 for utilities is compared to what Guyana’s private sector minimum wage workers and elderly pensioners receive monthly, the workers manage a poor second and pensioners an invisible third to their one-time presidents. Bottom line: Guyana pays more for utilities for former presidents than it pays to its unskilled workers and older citizens.

Additional commentary follows. I endorse unlimited medical benefits for former presidents and their spouses. Having known catastrophic family situations before, caring for former presidents’ health must be on the treasury. Similarly, security costs for them do not provoke any objection. In contrast, and I am immovable, all the other areas of benefits enjoyed by former presidents are attractive, should not be increased by one dime. To former presidents Hinds, Jagdeo, Ramotar, and Granger, I tender my respects. To Excellency Ali for allowing this to gain merit on his watch, there’s the unspeakable and unprintable. When Attorney General Nandlall led this to parliament, he reserved a special place for himself in one of those circles conjured by that Florentine that many cautiously quote.

When their bleak, harsh circumstances are considered, Guyanese truly are the wretched of the earth. Given that an unlimited benefits bill for former presidents can be thought of, actually given parliamentary life, at this time. If Guyanese were in a better place, I would be the first to say YES. When Ali and Nandlall fight for more for Guyana, gain some small advances, I could reconsider. Finally, in a real country, this bill would be the straw that broke open the floodgates of seething resentments, and send fed-up citizens in the streets.