Dear Editor,
We welcome the launch of the month of the elderly under the theme ‘Working for the elderly, celebrating their contribution to Guyana.’
However, recognition of the elderly calls for more than a month of celebrations, feeding, cultural shows and handouts. It calls for raising the old age pension from the starvation level of $212 a day – less than the price of a loaf of bread.
On May 1, 2010 at the Labour Day march of workers, Red Thread and Grassroots Women Across Race launched a campaign to make this call. Our position is, as we’ve said in previous statements, that “the work pensioners did in the past and the work they are still doing now, contributes to the economy but its importance and value are dismissed. Older people don’t count and neither does their work…” We have also called for recognition of the fact that pensioners remain workers even after they reach the age of retirement, and that women pensioners, in particular, do the work of caring for themselves, their spouses and partners, grandchildren, other relatives, neighbours and friends. All of this work – past and present – is apparently invisible – even to trade unionists whose job is to defend the rights of all workers.
Those in government who decide on how much money old age pensioners can live on are themselves living luxuriously. Our opposition leaders are no better; the PNCR has said that they have made several recommendations to the Minister of Human Services on behalf of the elderly, but how much priority have they given to this urgent need? Government and opposition, they all clearly believe that presidents and leaders of the opposition are the only ones who deserve to retire on fat pensions – that they have a moral right to guarantee themselves a far more than comfortable future while thousands upon thousands of elderly Guyanese women and men are forced to choose between eating, buying medication and paying bills.
Again we say, it is no point telling us the cost to the economy of increases in old age pensions. What is the increase for the pensioner? What is the cost to her or him of living on $212 a day? The excuse can’t be that there is no money to provide a living income. Let the government take the money from the super salaries, the wastage, the corruption and the extra VAT takings. We challenge the big economists to work with us to find precisely where this money is. In this month in which the country is celebrating elderly women and men in Guyana, we repeat the demands of our campaign:
* More money for pensioners. To be expected to live on $6600 per month is not only an insult, it is the killing off of the elderly. Those who reduce others to survive for a month on this pittance spend that much on lunch with their friends.
* Better arrangements to collect their money at the post offices. Sometimes old age pensioners have to wait standing in the rain in long lines and some post offices still can be found telling them to come back another day because there’s no money to pay. This must stop now!
* Proper medical attention without having to wait hours. This must include special lines at hospitals and clinics with first priority given pensioners whenever possible, and also adequate medical supplies. Pensioners must not be sent away and told to return, or to buy because supplies have run out.
* Free transportation for pensioners.
Old age pensioners don’t need favours and handouts. They need and want what they are entitled to. They need and want a living income and real respect. Then they will have something to celebrate.
Yours faithfully,
Joy Marcus
Joycelyn Bacchus
Halima Khan
Susan Collymore
For Red Thread and
Grassroots Women
Across Race
