Hamilton Green petitions President Ramotar for benefits - says former Prime Ministers must also be taken care of
Written by Gary Eleazar, Friday, 24 May 2013 23:50, Source
CITY Mayor Hamilton Green, an executive member of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), has written to Head of State Donald Ramotar to ask that he puts in place benefits and other facilities to be provided to former Prime Ministers.
The move, however, has raised eyebrows at Office of the President, given that the move by the APNU executive member seems to be in direct contravention of what the party had been pushing for all along.
Sources close to Office of the President, reminded yesterday that APNU in its political campaign had said that they would be repealing the provisions for the former Presidents.
The source reminded also that APNU had been extremely critical of the provisions to former Presidents, “calling it a waste of taxpayers money.”
Green, himself a former Prime Minister under the People’s National Congress (PNC) administration, is now petitioning the Donald Ramotar administration to have provisions set aside for him.
The source said that APNU had been so vehemently against the provisions for former Presidents, that it had piloted a motion in the House to have them repealed.
When this failed, APNU subsequently moved a Bill in the National Assembly to have the very provisions repealed.
Head of State Donald Ramotar had refused to assent to the Bill saying that it had been violative of the Constitution of Guyana.
“He is now seeking the same provisions for himself,” the source told this publication in reference to Green’s petition.
Green in his letter to Head of State Ramotar drew reference to the very law that his party was looking to repeal and said that he believed that former Prime Ministers should also be catered for.
Green says that “in most modern democracies the former holder of that post next to its Head of State normally receives a fixed percentage of benefits available to the former Head of State.”
In his letter to President Ramotar, Green requested that the matter be dealt with during the life of the current parliament, “since it is safe to assume that neither the executive nor parliament would wish to deny former holders of high office, legitimate and reasonable expectations.”
