ON A CLOSE VOTE along strict party lines, Parliament has approved generous pension payments to Jamaican Prime Ministers and their widows. In essence the pensions of past Prime Ministers will be 100 per cent of the salary being paid to a current Prime Minister, a salary level which will inevitably be adjusted upward. Mr. Bruce Golding, leader of the Opposition, has objected to this as being too generous and a betrayal of public trust. Cynics may see this as political grandstanding, but on the face of it, Mr. Golding may have a point.
Although politicians and especially Prime Ministers deserve to be reasonably paid for their services to the nation, when it comes to pensions there are guidelines which should be taken into consideration. In the private sector in Jamaica, even the most generous pensions usually work out to be about 80 per cent of the current earnings of an executive, the theory being that such a person will not need as much disposable income in retirement as he would on the job. This point was reinforced by Mr. Golding when he explained that in the United States of America, retiring Presidents get only a percentage of their salaries as a pension. According to Mr. Golding, Prime Ministers in the United Kingdom get about 71 per cent of their current salary as pensions.
The debate about pension quantum notwithstanding, what is disturbing about this matter is that for the past 13 years, pension payments have been made to past Prime Ministers without parliamentary approval. The attitude seems to be that if an issue has been agreed by Cabinet, taking it to Parliament for approval is only a formality which can be dispensed with on the grounds of political expediency. Such an approach to government has no constitutional basis and enshrines a political culture which sees party as being more important than the nation. To come to Parliament now to seek ratification for pension payments to Prime Ministers is the height of slackness.
We wish our past Prime Ministers well and are grateful to them for the contributions they have made to national development, but it is a shame that their retirement should be clouded by an approach to the pension issue which seems underhanded and designed to keep the public in ignorance of the benefits conferred.
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