Dear Editor,

Prime Minister is extremely astonished at the paid advertisement placed in the name of the People’s National Congress/Reform and appearing on page 18 of the 27.4.09 edition of the Kaieteur News (KN).

We should not blow ‘hot and cold’ about pension arrangements for our former presidents and their spouses. Whoever placed that advertisement in the KN, is denuding the PNCR of the dignity, decency and distinction to which it lays claim.

Bill No 12 of 2009 (Former Presidents (Benefits and Other Facilities)) does not say anything about the pay of a sitting President. The pay of a sitting President was settled in Act 4 of 2004 in which his pay was set equal to that of the Chancellor – a sitting President is not the highest paid official, he receives the same pay as the Chancellor and the Attorney General, and there was not then, nor have there been any objections.

Bill No 12 of 2009 does not say anything about the quantum of the pension (superannuation) benefits in respect of service in the office of President. That has already been settled in Act 4 of 2004 with no dissenting voice discerned at that time. Indeed there was much talk then that our presidents and former presidents should be provided for as generously as could be afforded by the nation. And it is the same Act 4 of 2004 that was last week extended to former President Hoyte, and which now cloaks his surviving spouse.

Bill No 12 speaks to other benefits and facilities which former presidents and their spouses, indeed our society, have expected, the granting or withholding of which, some argued, should not lie within the discretion of the HPS, but be based in law.

Whether there is a law or not, who would want to deny the provision to former presidents and their spouses a vehicle owned and maintained by the state? Or, tax exemptions previously enjoyed by a President? Or the payment of utility bills? Medical expenses? Or personal security provided by the Presidential Guard?

The PNCR paid political advertisement presented these benefits in an extremely exaggerated way; if abuse was a real concern, the remedy would be to have proposed appropriate caps on these provisions; the paid advertisement indicates their real intent.

Whoever is inclined to consider His Excellency President Bharrat Jagdeo as selfish, shameless and presumptious for supporting this bill, must count Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, too, as selfish and shameless for supporting it, and, for that matter, also count as such, all those who supported the President Hoyte bill of last week!

Yes, Prime Minister is involved, and does have a vested interest as the Fourth Executive President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana who ‘saw’ the PPP/C’s first term of office to an end (March 6-December 18, 1997).

For the record, Prime Minister has not been receiving the former President’s pension, but only his Prime Minister’s pay and benefits, and would rather put off that pension day as long as he could!

Bill No 12 of 2009 is a good bill worthy of the support of each and every Guyanese who would want to put our nation first.

Yours faithfully,
Samuel A A Hinds MP
Prime Minister