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Bruce proposes to roll back PMs' pension benefits
published: Saturday | July 28, 2007
Leader of the [COLOR=black! important][COLOR=black! important]Jamaica[/COLOR][/COLOR] Labour Party (JLP) Bruce Golding vowed Thursday night to reverse a legislative decision which brought the pension of former prime ministers in line with the salary of the current head of government.
Mr. Golding criticised former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson for taking legislation to Parliament just before he retired to amend the Pension's Act to give effect to the increase.
According to Mr. Golding, if the JLP forms the next government, he would take a bill to Parliament to amend the law within the first 100 days in office.
"In the past, when you retire as Prime Minister, you get a pension that is equal to two-thirds of whatever the Prime Minister is getting. I am going to amend that law to reverse the Prime Minister's pension back to what it was before Mr. Patterson amended it," Golding said to loud cheers from supporters.
Substantial benefits
Theamendments to the Prime Minister's pension legislation give former Prime Ministers substantial benefits, including a salary for a personal secretary and a gardener, as well as the equivalent of the current prime minister's salary.
The former Prime Minister was also condemned by Mr. Golding for remarks he made in Mandeville recently when he said: "A fisherman once told me, don't give hungry man yuh food to carry."
He said that Mr. Patterson's utterances were disparaging and reflected that "as far as all a dem government people are concerned, they are well fed." Highlighting the uneven distribution of [COLOR=black! important][COLOR=black! important]wealth[/COLOR][/COLOR] and the state of poverty in Jamaica, Mr. Golding argued that the top 20 per cent of Jamaicans controlled 46 per cent of the country's wealth, "but the bottom 20 per cent of the people of Jamaica have to share only six per cent of the wealth of Jamaica".
published: Saturday | July 28, 2007
Leader of the [COLOR=black! important][COLOR=black! important]Jamaica[/COLOR][/COLOR] Labour Party (JLP) Bruce Golding vowed Thursday night to reverse a legislative decision which brought the pension of former prime ministers in line with the salary of the current head of government.
Mr. Golding criticised former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson for taking legislation to Parliament just before he retired to amend the Pension's Act to give effect to the increase.
According to Mr. Golding, if the JLP forms the next government, he would take a bill to Parliament to amend the law within the first 100 days in office.
"In the past, when you retire as Prime Minister, you get a pension that is equal to two-thirds of whatever the Prime Minister is getting. I am going to amend that law to reverse the Prime Minister's pension back to what it was before Mr. Patterson amended it," Golding said to loud cheers from supporters.
Substantial benefits
Theamendments to the Prime Minister's pension legislation give former Prime Ministers substantial benefits, including a salary for a personal secretary and a gardener, as well as the equivalent of the current prime minister's salary.
The former Prime Minister was also condemned by Mr. Golding for remarks he made in Mandeville recently when he said: "A fisherman once told me, don't give hungry man yuh food to carry."
He said that Mr. Patterson's utterances were disparaging and reflected that "as far as all a dem government people are concerned, they are well fed." Highlighting the uneven distribution of [COLOR=black! important][COLOR=black! important]wealth[/COLOR][/COLOR] and the state of poverty in Jamaica, Mr. Golding argued that the top 20 per cent of Jamaicans controlled 46 per cent of the country's wealth, "but the bottom 20 per cent of the people of Jamaica have to share only six per cent of the wealth of Jamaica".