Nagamootoo’s pension outstrips Jagdeo’s

 – “If you think the salaries are bad, the pensions are worse” – Former AG

By Michael Younge

Former Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall says that Guyanese will have to carry the burden of Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo’s multimillion-dollar salary and intended pension package for decades to come because of the recent increased announced by the new Government, which it said it deserved after just four months in office.

While in Opposition, Prime Minister Nagamootoo had berated the former People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government for raping the treasury and placing an undue burden on the shoulders of Guyanese, given the alleged quantum of Jagdeo’s pension package and benefits.

Despite the fact that the Government and former President himself clarified on many occasions that there was nothing special about Jagdeo’s pension or benefits, the Prime Minister and his colleagues while in Opposition campaigned heavily on the issue.

As they accessed Government, they used their majority in Parliament to cap and reduce the benefits and conditions under which former Presidents could access their pensions and full benefits.

But Nandlall, speaking with Guyana Times International on Wednesday, said that Guyanese will also have to bare the burdens of paying the pensions of all of the other office holders who will take home super salaries retroactive to July 1, 2015.

“By virtue of the humongous increases in salary, the Prime Minister, and I am sure the President, when his increase is disclosed, will now enjoy a higher rate of pension than Former Presidents, Sam Hinds, Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar, since pensions for these office holders and indeed, Ministers and Vice Presidents are pegged by statute to 7/8 of their highest paid salary”, he said during the interview.

He said that after four months in office and for doing almost nothing, the Prime Minister has “chalked up a 22 million dollar land cruiser, 20 million dollar renovations to the Office of the Prime Minister, about 15 million dollars in renovation to the Prime Minister’s residence, over 10 million dollars in furniture for the residence, salaries over 1.7 million dollars retroactive to July, 2015 and a pension, even if he is to retire tomorrow, that will be higher than the pension enjoyed by former Presidents, Hinds, Jagdeo and Ramotar”.

The former Attorney General maintained that from all indications, this will not be the only salary increase over the next few years. “If in four months salaries were increased… it is frightening to project what it will be by the end of five years”, he related.

“In relation to each increase, there will be a corresponding increase in pension’s payable at a rate of 7/8 of the highest salary. So the nation is not only fetching the burden of these salary increases but these increases are attached to the pension of each of the recipients at a rate of 7/8 of the salary of each of them. The cumulative amount will run into billions as pensions are payable until death. This is a burden that our children and future generation will have to fetch at their backs”, the former AG who is now a front bencher for the PPP in the National Assembly contended.

He reminded that while in Opposition, the new Government and now the Prime Minister, ranted and rave about presidential pensions saying “that we cannot live a Cadillac lifestyle in a donkey cart economy”.

“This is the worst political fraud so far perpetrated against the Guyanese electorate. I know that even their staunchest supporter is absolutely embarrassed and aghast”, Nandlall posited.