business
Diana Mahabir-Wyatt
The issue of pensions is not limited to business circles in the ongoing debate about public servants and their rights.
Mr Imbert has serious problems on his hands trying to reconcile current and future national budget allocations to guarantee adequate post-retirement pensions from full-time employment for all former government employees, the present and the future.
Past promises made to induce compliance have expensive consequences. And make no mistake, all public servants are entitled to pensions, every single one of them.
Unlike many other newly independent economies, Trinidad and Tobago offers pensions not only to its civil servants and employees of state-owned enterprises, and to the judiciary, but also, by contract, to those employed in essential services such as water , electricity, health, hospital, fire, internal and external communication, security and hygiene.
To these we can add the rights to primary and secondary education, sports and cultural facilities and a host of social and economic benefits, not only for those employed by the government.
As Dr Rowley recently pointed out, his remit covers all those who are citizens of the country and some who are not.
Promises made in the hot political heat lead to rights in the future.
Dr Williams, in setting up the socialist system on which our government is based, really tried to ensure that all, old and young, were humanely and equally cared for through the crises to which mankind is heir. But he did it within a belief of discipline, production and shared tolerance. Not “freedom”.
However, as it turns out 60 years later, while the law says that all persons are equal, some people feel they have a “right” to be much more equal than others. Even that the law should provide for them more equally.
Take the curious subject of iron and metal merchants. For those who still believe what they read and see in the media, the claim among the “iron men,” as they cleverly call themselves (a genius marketing touch close to “a beer is a Caribbean”), seems to be that the trade that they follow must be protected even though a significant part of it is based on the theft and destruction of metal inputs in these services, essential to society; theft that particularly adversely affects the poor and unemployed trying to establish themselves in small entrepreneurial ventures.
Iron men produce headlines that threaten violence and rhetoric of “locking down the country.”
They claim that they are entitled to employment. Everyone has children to feed too, including children grown to believe in the right.
Children who complain: “I didn’t ask to be born!” People who claim the right to shelter on crown land, the right to be provided with houses to live in, which is why Dr Williams encouraged the creation of public housing.
Unfortunately, as recently exposed by HDC, people provided with shelter at the cost of peppercorns thought it unnecessary to pay even that peppercorn, or to keep their homes.
A culture of entitlement is supported by threats of violence against a government that does not provide what people think they are “entitled to”.
Father Gerry Pantin, the creator of Servol, the most successful NGO in the region, learned early and repeated often that people do not appreciate what they get for free.
Even a bird will not defile its own nest. But it seems that those who think they are “entitled” can take, sell or spoil what they are given and demand more, “as a right”.
Another “right” is government pensions, which, unlike those in the private sector, are non-contributory, as well as pension grants for those over 65.
NIS pensions require 750 or more contributions – the minimum is 150 – so they are earned, but grants that are even more lucrative than NIS pensions are given for free to those who have not saved or contributed for their old age.
No one complains.
A civilized society must provide for those who truly cannot provide for their basic needs: children, the sick and disabled, and the elderly. But even those provided in this way are actually encouraged to adopt the culture of entitlement.
But back to the right to work or “we’re going to shut down the country” thing that’s getting increasing political support from people I once respected.
After it is closed, who will provide the jobs? Who will pay the teachers and provide free school lunches?
As with domestic violence, you cannot beat or threaten a person’s love. Or, outside of slavery, use violence to secure employment.
Surely the iron men can find better ways to strategize?
