What about me and my wife; don’t we need money too?
Kaieteur News – For decades now, there have been announcements in the print media about a former government minister and senator, Balram Singh Rai, entitled to a pension and they should have been receiving it for a long time now. Mr. Guyana went to the UK in 1970, never returned. He is currently 100 years old. Mr Rai is just short of completing the exact time required.
The question is – should he get a pension? My answer is yes. This man served his country in outstanding ways in the 1950s and 1960s. From everything I have read about, he seems to be a man of principles.
Interestingly, there are some dimensions to the pension quagmire. Mr Rai lives as a recluse in London and has never communicated with the Guyanese people on a pension issue. I have read a biography of him by Dr. Baytoram Ramharack and Rai is completely absent of any aspect of the pension injustice. Not even a line. For the 50 years he has left Guyana, he has not indicated whether he is interested in the pension.
Surely he has no obligation to let us know if he is interested or wants the matter to die. It makes no sense for advocates to keep calm if the man himself doesn’t want it. It has just passed 100 years and a group of leading East Indian Guyanese scholars has published a letter deploring the existence of Rai’s pension. The crucial question is, does Rai or his wife want it. His wife is in her late eighties. All of Rai’s children are in their early seventies. Do they need the money? If yes, please indicate this so that advocacy can continue.
An interesting response about the pension story hit the news last February 11, when Mr “Kit” Nascimento informed the nation that, as a former senator, he was entitled to a pension but had not received it since the eighties . Nascimento also noted that there were others like him.
When I read the Nascimento revelation, I decided to compose this column. Rai is 100 years old. Nascimento told us he was in his late eighties. But comparatively speaking my wife is young with a young girl and is entitled to her pension, which she has not received since 2011, when she was pushed out of her job as a government investment officer at GOINVEST at the time .
My wife worked for 14 consecutive years paying her money into the CLICO pension scheme as a government servant. When CLICO collapsed the government had an obligation on its employees to pay their pension. They were serving the government. My wife lost millions of dollars in pension money and at the time had a daughter at university. We never took out a student loan for her studies. We paid off our scarce resources. The government at that time in 2011 and the governments since that time need to fulfill the state obligation to my wife.
What about me and the money I lost at AS as a lecturer when my contract was arbitrarily terminated in December 2011? The Ombudsman contracted a state-of-the-art legal brain to pronounce on my dismissal. They ruled I was moved illegally. I have never received compensation since 2011.
Since the Ombudsman’s report in 2013, I have never been offered any compensation by the state. I have never had a query about whether I would like to resume my lecturer status at AS. For the record, I’m not interested in returning to AS. That part of my life is part of my history. It’s gone. I don’t want it back.
Only Dr. Mark Kirton in his capacity as an adviser to the APNU + AFC government who thought I should get compensation. He told me that wrongdoing should be abused and that he thought I had been wrongfully dismissed. He took the Ombudsman’s report and that was the last I heard of the matter. I think Mark showed his obligation to me as a friend of 44 years. But I think he was disregarded by APNU + AFC high priests. I know Mark very closely and so I know he will never reveal to me what happened. Also, he has an obligation to the PNC leadership so I know he wouldn’t tell me, and I won’t ask.
So yes, Rai should get his pension if he needs it. I don’t know if Nascimento wants it. I can speak for the Kissoon family. My wife is entitled to it. I should get compensation based on the Ombudsman’s decision. But ask me if you think I’m hopeful.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.)