Dear Editor,
Every student knows that he/she would only be eligible for an NIS pension at age 60, unless of course there are exceptional related circumstances. Every worthwhile public servant in Guyana is aware of the retirement age in the CARICOM countries being at least 60 years. From our own Public Service, it should be easy for the GRA, for example, to inform on the number of public sector agencies whose retirement age, like themselves, is sixty years.
GPL, originally a Canadian company, retains a retirement age of 65 years. All previously owned expatriate companies, e.g. sugar, shipping, observe retirement age of 60. Of course, all Private sector organisations ensure that their employees, on retirement, earn an NIS pension.
But then all of Guyana’s Diplomats can verify that the governments to whom they relate observe quite liberal retirement conditions, mostly above 60. In the UK there is no insistence on the termination of employment on account of age.
How come it is that this most creative country maintains the same retirement age as when it was a Colony – a time when civil servants had to be certified as medically fit to be employed – a condition that still obtains, in public and private sector organisations, that retain you till sixty years, and more.
But then we are not just ‘One Nation.’ We are ‘Singular’, to the extent that no attention has since been paid to Dr. Harold Latchman’s comprehensive Report resulting from the Commission of Inquiry into the Public Service. Amongst the issues comprehensively addressed was exactly the application of a new age of retirement.
Sincerely,
E.B. John
Human Resources
Consultant (Retired)
