No PM’s benefit for Young

KE­JAN HAYNES &

GAIL ALEXAN­DER

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young will not be re­ceiv­ing a prime min­is­te­r­i­al pen­sion, af­ter the Sen­ate yes­ter­day ap­proved the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025, which now sets a min­i­mum one-year term in of­fice for any prime min­is­ter to qual­i­fy for a State pen­sion. The bill al­so has a tiered pay­ment struc­ture based on time served. Cru­cial­ly, the bill ap­plies retroac­tive­ly from March 10, 2025, com­plete­ly dis­qual­i­fy­ing Young, who served from March 17 to April 28.

The bill re­quired a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty to pass in both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment, mean­ing the Gov­ern­ment need­ed the sup­port of at least four sen­a­tors from ei­ther the In­de­pen­dent or Op­po­si­tion bench­es. The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed the bill on June 27 with 27 Gov­ern­ment MPs in favour and 11 Op­po­si­tion MPs ab­stain­ing.

In the Sen­ate, the Gov­ern­ment again se­cured the num­bers, with 20 sen­a­tors vot­ing in favour, none against, and 10 ab­stain­ing.

The pas­sage came one day af­ter the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) launched a di­rect at­tack on the In­de­pen­dent Sen­ate bench, ques­tion­ing their neu­tral­i­ty ahead of the vote. Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence on Sun­day, UNC PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo said if at least four In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors failed to sup­port the bill, they would be en­abling the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment “to con­tin­ue to rape the Trea­sury, even in Op­po­si­tion.”

Fol­low­ing a de­bate from 10 yes­ter­day morn­ing, with sen­a­tors from all sides hav­ing their say on the mat­ter and then a brief Com­mit­tee Stage sit­ting, mem­bers of the Up­per House then vot­ed on the bill.

All 15 Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tors vot­ed in sup­port of the bill, while all six Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors ab­stained.

In the end, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors’ votes were key to the bill’s pas­sage. Here’s how they vot­ed:

De­oroop Teemal

Michael de la Bastide, SC

Fran­cis Lewis

Court­ney Mc Nish

Ali­cia Lalite-Et­ti­enne

An­tho­ny Vieira SC

Can­dice Jones-Sim­mons

Dr De­sirée Mur­ray

Zo­la Phillips (tem­porar­i­ly re­plac­ing Dr Mar­lene Attzs)

Ear­li­er in the day’s pro­ceed­ings, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi said the PNM was bound to ab­stain in vot­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) 2025 bill as five per cent of PNM mem­bers’ in­come go to the par­ty’s levy sys­tem.

“And un­der the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, we have to de­clare that, so we’re an in­ter­est­ed par­ty as the PNM re­ceives five per cent of that. Do we wish to be in those cir­cum­stances - no. Should we par­tic­i­pate in some­thing that of­fers as­sis­tance in that de­bate, I think - no,” Al-Rawi said.

Al-Rawi said while the PNM had no prob­lem with the for­mu­la for cal­cu­lat­ing pen­sions, the Op­po­si­tion felt the bill’s retroac­tiv­i­ty tar­get­ed Young.

He said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had re­ceived the op­po­si­tion leader’s salary but was “topped up” to the prime min­is­ter’s salary.

“But the Prime Min­is­ter’s salary was en­larged by the 120th Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion re­port. There was a song and dance by (UNC) mem­bers that the re­port was ‘ob­scene’ but every­one in UNC ac­cept­ed the salary. They (like for­mer PM Young) could have eas­i­ly agreed they will not take the salary, they could give it to the Chil­dren’s Life Fund.”

Al-Rawi queried why, in broad­en­ing pro­por­tion­al­i­ty and sav­ing tax­pay­ers, retroac­tiv­i­ty couldn’t ap­ply to Per­sad-Bisses­sar and have the “top up” re­moved from both salaries re­ceived as op­po­si­tion leader and as for­mer prime min­is­ter.

“Why are we on­ly retroac­tive­ly af­fect­ing Stu­art Young for­mer prime min­is­ter...be­cause (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) is en­ti­tled to a back pay of close to $1 mil­lion. Is that $1 mil­lion any dif­fer­ent to the $1 mil­lion, for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young is go­ing to re­ceive?”

But At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, who said Al-Rawi was wrong on his le­gal points, said the Pen­sion Act was a 1969 law, when a PM’s pen­sion wouldn’t have been a big bur­den on tax­pay­ers, but has now moved to mil­lions an­nu­al­ly. He said the SRC’s last re­port cat­a­pult­ed the prime min­is­ter’s pay and that’s more than the Pres­i­dent’s $81,000. He said when that oc­curred there was a hue and cry in the streets. He said it was at a time when pub­lic ser­vants on­ly got a four per cent in­crease.

He said Par­lia­ment’s func­tion was to pass laws for the peace, or­der and good gov­er­nance of T&T.

“That’s our job, you failed to do it and paid the con­se­quence of ig­nor­ing or­di­nary peo­ple - we are not about to ig­nore them. That’s the rea­son why we’re here. We’re not about pun­ish­ing any per­sons, we’re about do­ing our busi­ness with faith­ful re­liance on sec­tions of the Con­sti­tu­tion.”