Dear Editor,
Between 1944 and 1947 I was the pay officer for Old Age Pensioners and Poor Relief recipients, from Port Mourant on the Corentyne Coast to Kwakwani up the Berbice River. My office then was located at the corner of Strand and Stelling Road at the District Commissioner’s Office in New Amsterdam.
I remember complaining then about these old and disabled persons having to line up under the burning sun, out in the open for hours on end as they waited to be paid. On the northern side of the District Commissioner’s Office was a gate which opened onto a narrow passageway, along which the poor souls would have to stand and wait to be paid. In no instance as far as I can remember was there as much as a seat provided for these people.
Now I am now an Old Age Pensioner myself and have to collect my pension book from the Camptown Community Centre in Campbellville. When I got there last Thursday, ahead of me was another pensioner being assisted to the stairway leading to the upper storey of the building, while ahead of him was a blind pensioner being assisted up and later down the two-tiered stairway. Inside the distribution centre itself there was seating accommodation for about 6 persons.
While I was there, there was always about 6 to 8 other pensioners standing. To my enquiry as to why the lower storey of the building was not being used came the reply that, “The caretaker of the building did not approve of it.”
Am I to understand that after 60-odd years, no one can come up with a better system of distributing pension books, or has considered the plight of the old, the feeble, the blind and tried to ease our suffering just to collect a pittance, which so many today have to depend on?
Yours faithfully,
R J Eleazar
