Human Services Minister Priya Manickchand has called for the Alliance For Change Member of Parliament Sheila Holder to apologise or resign for what she called an “irresponsible” act aimed at “mischievously” misleading the National Assembly.
On Tuesday January 26, during the 2011 Budget debate, Holder presented a self-administered study that found the sum of $1.3 billion from the old age pension fund being unaccounted for every year, whereas it is supposedly paid to 17,640 “phantom” pensioners. Manickchand retorted that Holder’s statistics are the ghosts.
Holder used information from the 2002 population census and the Auditor General’s Report to compile the study. The AFC’s prime ministerial candidate told the National Assembly that, between 2007 and 2009, the number of old age pensioners increased by 30 per cent, a situation she described as “peculiar”, since between 2002 and 2006 the numbers changed little from 33,000 to 34,000 persons. According to her findings, there are actually 26,360 pensioners as against the 44,000 portrayed by the government.
“The situation is further complicated,” she claimed. According to her, revelations in the Performance/ Value for Money audit undertaken by the auditor general of Guyana suggests that “approximately 24 per cent of the persons 65 years and older were not recorded in the ministry’s database, and were therefore not in receipt of old age pension.”
But an angry Manickchand retorted that Holder’s findings were very offensive, and questioned whether Holder had the qualification to conduct such a study — an insinuation that was met with major objection by the opposition. She called the study “illogical and unscientific”, and noted that it does not represent reality.
Manickchand expressed disappointment that a woman and a parliamentarian would make such errant and irresponsible claims. She believed it was a deliberate attempt to misguide the house, rather than a lack of knowledge. “The Honourable Mrs Holder must resign, if she is not going to apologise,” Manickchand declared.
Meanwhile, the minister said that the AG’s ‘value for money report’ is used as a management tool at the Human Services Ministry, but there are some recommendations that she believes will cause much hardship for the beneficiaries. One of these is the idea that pensioners in hinterland areas should collect their monies by themselves as against having the toshaos from the village take it to a central location in bulk to ease pressure on the senior citizens.
In an attempt to defend her pension programme, the minister walked in with files of the names of all the pensioners from the various districts countrywide, making it available for anyone who was interested in confirming her rebuttal.
At that point, leader of the People’s National Congress Reform, Robert Corbin, walked over to collect the files without hesitation.
Further, the minister pointed to an enhanced government programme to decentralise the offices, making it more convenient for pensioners to access their monies. The waiver on the water bill for registered pensioners also served as relief for thousands of pensioners.
In the meantime, Holder, who arrived late and was absent during Manickchand’s presentation, told Guyana Times International that she has no intention of apologising or resigning. “The study that I did speaks for itself…I stand by the figures I presented.”
She described the minister’s passionate response as “unbecoming” of a female government minister. “The fact that I wasn’t here perhaps is good, as far as I’m concerned, because I don’t think I need to hear somebody abuse me in that manner,” Holder pointed out. She is now calling on the minister to publish the names of the 44,000 pensioners. “Let the public be the judge on how many of them are legitimately entitled.”
Last year, government spent some $3.6 billion on old age pensions and subsidised water payments for some 42,000 old age pensioners. The pension was increased from $6,600 to $7,500 per month this year.
