Alissa Trotz is the editor of the Diaspora Column.
A recent Diaspora Column by Dr. Arif Bulkan, ‘Would Cheddi have sold his house for $120 million?’ (March 7th issue) remains one of Stabroek News’ most popular columns in its online version, shared directly from the newspaper website with hundreds of people. It has been posted on Facebook pages, and sent around to people via e-mail. In internet speak, it has gone viral.
Regrettably, but not surprisingly, public disagreement expressed through the state owned media has come in the form of attacking the messenger instead of addressing the message and the claims leveled in Arif Bulkan’s article. This is one more indication of the current state of our political culture, and it has only heightened people’s sense that such personal attacks are meant to distract attention from the substance of the criticisms made. As someone with over 15 years of teaching experience in higher education institutions, I can say without hesitation that any student who submitted an essay commenting on the author instead of carefully engaging with the argument of an article she or he was asked to respond to, would immediately receive a failing grade.
Given the widespread interest in the important topic of the growing gap between the rich and poor in Guyana, 18 years after the return to free and fair elections, let us look again at the entitlements to which President Bharrat Jagdeo will be entitled following the general elections scheduled for later this year.
The entitlements are massive,
and open-ended
These entitlements are provided for by the Former Presidents (Benefits and Other Facilities) Act No. 12, which was passed in the first quarter of 2009, and future presidents will also benefit if this legislation is allowed to remain on the books.
In addition to a tax free pension, former Presidents shall, during the remainder of their lifetime, be entitled to:
● Payment of water, electricity and telephone bills at their place of residence
● Services of personal and household staff including but not limited to an attendant and gardener
● Services of an unspecified number of clerical and technical staff
● Free medical treatment or reimbursement of medical expenses incurred by them for their own treatment or treatment of dependents
● Full-time personal security and services of the Presidential Guard Service at their place of residence
● The provision of an unspecified number of motor vehicles owned and maintained by the State
● Toll free road transportation in Guyana
● Annual vacation allowance equivalent to the cost of two first class return airfares
● Tax exemption status identical to that enjoyed by a serving President
We don’t know of any former Guyana
Presidents who received them all
A number of things immediately come to mind. The first has to do with the government‘s claim that all it was doing was making a customary practice transparent and accountable. Yet when called upon during the parliamentary debates to name which former Presidents actually received the wide range of benefits outlined in the legislation, Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh was unable to answer. On the issue of accountability, the vagueness of the list is also striking, a point that was raised during the parliamentary debate by opposition MP, the late Winston Murray, when he observed that there were no caps on any of the items. Indeed, there is nothing in this Act to constrain an excessive, even vulgar, interpretation of the Act, such as by requesting the provision of an unlimited number of motor vehicles, medical treatment received at the top clinics or hospitals anywhere in the world, or the hiring of innumerable office and personal staff members, all at the taxpayers’ expense. The level of extravagance will be entirely up to the individual discretion of former Presidents, beginning with President Jagdeo. This raises the question of how such uncertainty and unpredictability with regard to the cost of a legal obligation of this nature could ever qualify as a law. Indeed, there is an established jurisprudence that views certainty as the hallmark not just of a law, but of the rule of law itself. On this score, Act No. 12 is surely the antithesis of legality.
Compared to the US the entitlements
are far larger
The second point relates to putting Act No.12 into perspective by comparing it with similar Acts in other places. Most of us would agree that public office entails a number of personal sacrifices, provided that the person filling it has integrity. One cannot use one’s public office to secure contracts or make private arrangements, influence the outcome of deals in one’s favour or engage in anything that might result in a conflict of interest.
Provisions in countries around the world reflect an understanding that an attractive and reasonable pension plan is necessary to attract qualified individuals of integrity to serve in such a capacity. The important word here is “reasonable”, and it applies as well to what a country like Guyana could sustainably afford. According to a Stabroek News Article of April 30th 2009, Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon, in a statement dismissing criticism that the proposed legislation was extravagant and unwarranted, “added that what the bill confers as benefits and facilities to the former Presidents are similar to what is already being provided in other jurisdictions to their former heads. Further, when compared with the size of those benefits…what is being proposed is minimal.”
Are the Guyanese people expected to meekly accept this characterization of Act No. 12? On what basis did Dr. Luncheon’s office make this confident conclusion? It is an incredible claim to make, given that Act No. 12 says absolutely nothing about numerical or financial limits, which makes it impossible to calculate how much it will actually cost the Guyanese taxpayers each year.
This is in stark contrast to the situation that faces former heads in several other countries. Let our readers judge the facts for themselves. In his column, Dr. Arif Bulkan correctly pointed out that the Guyana retirement package exceeds what a US President gets on leaving office. For starters, the lifetime pension offered to former US Presidents is taxable, with an amount set annually by Congress each year. Former Presidents in the richest country in the world also get transition expenses, office allowances and office (not personal) staff, again within explicit dollar limits, beyond which they must cover their own costs personally. Travel for pleasure is not provided at the State’s expense. Secret Service protection for former presidents who entered public office after January 1, 1997 is provided for 10 years. Medical expenses are covered for treatment in US military hospitals only; should former presidents and their dependants enroll in private health insurance plans, they are free to do so out of their own pocket.
Compared to other Caribbean
countries too…
Closer to home, in Trinidad and Tobago (possibly the richest country in the Commonwealth Caribbean) under the Prime Minister’s Pension Act a former Prime Minister receives the highest annual rate of salary paid to the current Prime Minister. This is also the situation in Jamaica, under the Jamaican Pensions (Prime Minister) Act of 2005, where ex- Prime Ministers are additionally entitled to allowances (housing, secretarial, social secretary, chauffeur, personal security, household helper and gardener), equivalent to what a sitting Cabinet minister enjoys. While the list of entitlements for a former Prime Minister in Jamaica is closer to the Guyana list, the items in the Jamaican list are all costed in advance and are clearly not unlimited.
And in Barbados, one of the strongest and most stable economies in the English-speaking Caribbean, and which could arguably afford to be more generous than Guyana, under the Parliamentary Pensions Act a former Prime Minister has to reach the age of 50 years to be entitled to a pension, which shall not exceed two-thirds of the highest annual salary of any office she or he has previously held. Moreover, the Act explicitly states that the pension shall be halted if the Prime Minister takes up public office in any other capacity, only to resume when he or she leaves that office. This might well become a relevant issue for us to consider in Guyana, given the statement by PPP Presidential candidate Donald Ramotar that should he become the next President, he is open to bringing President Jagdeo on board in some other capacity. Under the terms of the present Bill, there is nothing to prevent President Jagdeo from continuing to receive the full Presidential pension while continuing to earn a salary if he assumes a Cabinet or other position in a new administration. Is this fair?
The relevant issue is the morality
of the package
Why did Dr Luncheon not make comparisons with these other countries, so much closer to home? Exactly which jurisdictions was he referring to when he more or less said that in relative terms, Act No. 12 was really very modest and nothing to write home about? He did not say, but others have offered examples. According to the Hansard, the official record of parliamentary proceedings, Mr. Odinga Lumumba compared the Guyana list favourably with what former heads are entitled to in Ghana, and approvingly cited ruling party Member of Parliament John Tiah as saying that “the tendency to hang onto power will be eradicated if presidents are assured of better conditions after leaving office.” Asked to comment, a university professor and leading scholar of African politics in Canada noted that “the relevant issue is not precedents like this to justify a President’s retirement package. The relevant issue is the morality of packages like these in societies like both Ghana and Guyana where the vast majority of the people are trapped in poverty. In this respect, it’s nothing short of obscene.”
This comment makes the point that the relevant comparison is not only or even with what former heads receive in other places. In his March 7th column, Arif Bulkan concluded that “the President’s large gains are most sobering when considered against the searing inequalities now commonplace in Guyana, where the gap between the government and the governed has taken on epic proportions.” In a later column, we will return to this by putting the extravagant Presidential retirement package alongside what other pensioners, this time ‘ordinary’ women and men in Guyana, receive.
