The National Assembly on Thursday passed the ‘Prime Minister Hamilton Green Pension Bill’ after hours of heated debate between Government and Opposition Members of Parliament (MP).
The bill which stipulates that former Prime Minister Hamilton Green will benefit from a pension that is 7/8 of the salary of the present Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo will see him receiving a monthly sum of $ 1.3 M per month.

The bill will become effective April 1, 2017. Arguments for and against were presented and the coalition’s MPs who presented arguments in favour of the bill unanimously highlighted the fact that opposition to the bill was not based on merit but on the perceived personality of the former prime minister.
This argument was articulated by Finance Minister Winston Jordan who said “principle must trump over personality” and that he does not believe that the granting of someone’s rightful pension should be denied which will allow for him to enjoy the lifestyle he did while serving as prime minister. Jordan in his statement alluded to the Constitution which stipulates that anyone who served in such a capacity as Green shall be paid a pension of 7/8 of his highest annual rate of salary and that this was not done for Green since he presently receives a meagre pension of $135, 858, monthly, a reality which he labeled as discriminatory and his Government desires to correct this wrong since it is inadequate in allowing him to live comfortably with the high office he occupied. “Mr. Green was not treated as a former prime minister but as a regular legislator, as such, his pension was incorrectly calculated,” Minister Winston Jordan said.
Minister Jordan went at length to explain why the bill was named after Hamilton Green as he is the only prime minister whose gratuity has been calculated incorrectly.
WIDE DISCREPANCIES
He said that there are wide discrepancies between his pension and the pension of the current prime minister when he demits office and the bill if passed will redress this. “As a former Prime Minister Mr. Hamilton Green has been mistreated for perceived wrongs committed during his tenure in and out of Government,” Jordan affirmed while commending the bill for passage.
He was backed by Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General Basil Williams who in his argument reminded the PPP MPs of them passing the Special Pension Act to make special provision for former President Bharrat Jagdeo, allowing him to receive a pension that will be calculated not to his highest salary while in office but to the salary of all Presidents to follow.
“The President’s pension should be 7/8 of the annual salary of the President in office and shall continue as 7/8 of such annual salary from each of his successors in perpetuity,” Williams read verbatim from the Act.
“I don’t know if there could be anything more repugnant than that but to come and regale us here today that we are giving a special act for someone who has served for nearly five decades in this country as prime minister, as vice president…,” Williams articulated.
He also alluded to personalised bills that were passed by the PPP for others such as former University of Guyana’s Chancellor George Walcott. “We are correcting a historical wrong,” Williams stated.

Junior Minister of Housing Valarie Patterson also alluded to the fact that former Prime Minister Samuel Hinds who served as prime minister for most of his tenure in Government but is receiving a pension of a President for serving in that capacity for nine months to pave the way for Jagdeo to become president.
Former Attorney General and Opposition MP Anil Nandlall rubbished the claim that the blocking of the bill was discriminatory as Former Prime Minister Hamilton Green was receiving a pension and other benefits befitting of his office. “This bill gives its beneficiary a pension that bears no relation with his salary whatsoever so it cannot be a pension,” Nandlall argued, saying that the bill has no basis. Nandlall challenged the Government to do the same for every other pensioner that served the country during the era of Hamilton Green’s tenure as prime minister.
UNFAIR
“Why don’t we do that for every single Parliamentarian, this law discriminates against every single pensioner in the country because it uses a different formula for the calculation,” Nandlall argued, adding that “we cannot make laws to suit the idiosyncrasies of individuals”.
Similar arguments were put forth by Nandlall’s colleague Gillian Burton-Persaud who said that she is not against the bill but is against the process used for its passage. The process of indexation which is used to increase wages and salaries as the cost of living goes up should not only be used for the benefit of Hamilton Green but of every other public servant. “Let it be one for all and all for one, if we can do it for one person we can do it for others,” Burton-Persaud argued, adding: “We need to be holistic in what we are doing.”
She posited that the coalition, if it so cared about Hamilton Green’s living conditions should have brought the issue to the National Assembly years ago when they were in Opposition and not 25 years after. With the House divided, the bill was taken to a vote and the Government used its majority in the House to pass the bill. Green who served as prime minister from 1985 to 1992 received a salary at that time of $32, 174. He was given a pension of $21, 000.
Meanwhile, the State Asset Recovery Agency (SARA) Bill and the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority Bill were deferred, while the Civil Aviation Authority Bill was sent back to Special Select Committee for further fine-tuning.