Green had an empty title as prime minister

TIMES INT'L

Dear Editor,
It has been reported in the media that Hamilton Green, Mayor of Georgetown, former vice president and prime minister, has written President Donald Ramotar, requesting that as a former prime minister, he should be given a pension and facilities analogous to former presidents.
The People’s National Congress (PNC) party, of which Green is a senior and influential member, has been vetoing former President Bharrat Jagdeo’s pension, claiming that such pensions and facilities are a waste of public funds.
Green’s request for an analogous pension does expose the opposition of the PNC/A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) to Jagdeo’s pension as being either a mock opposition or an opposition which is selective and vindictive and has nothing to do with public funds.
For if it had to do with public funds, Green would not have been permitted by his party to make such a request. After Green’s request, however, the PNC/APNU party cannot convincingly oppose Jagdeo’s pension anymore in Parliament.
President Forbes Burnham felt that he could not appoint Green as prime minister, and indeed never did. It was President Desmond Hoyte who so appointed him. But Green was merely a minister in Hoyte’s office and he had no physical ministry or staff, and he did not report to the president, but rather to the Head of the Presidential Secretariat Winston Murray.
Green, therefore, had an empty title as prime minister and was certainly not a real prime minister as say Kamla Persaud-Bissessar of Trinidad or Samuel Hinds of Guyana. It would accordingly be very difficult for him to be granted a pension and perks for an empty and meaningless appellation without substance.
My advice to Green is that, as an aged citizen who has spent a lifetime in politics, he should apply for a special state pension in addition to his parliamentary pension and his Old Age Pension.
Yours faithfully,
F Gibbs

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