After not convening Parliament for nearly four months and leaving many persons guessing as to whether there was indeed a legislative agenda for the second and final Irfaan Ali term in office, the government served up a clanger.
Among the bills tabled on June 5th was the Former Presidents (Benefits and Other Facilities) Act 2026. Its Explanatory Memorandum said in part: “Having regard to the services rendered by former Presidents and the dignity attached to the office of the President, it is considered necessary to extend certain amenities and benefits to them during the remainder of their lifetime”.
Benefits that the beneficiaries of the Bill will receive include “provision of utilities at the place of residence, services of personal, technical and household staff, payment of health-care related expenses, for self and dependant members of family, full time personal security and Presidential Guard Service arrangements at the residence and taxable status identical to that of a serving President”.
These apparently unlimited benefits were quite rightly stripped by the APNU+AFC government in 2015 from the law that had been passed by the Jagdeo administration in 2009. One must wonder at the genesis of this bill seeking these lavish benefits in a country where the dignity referred to in the Explanatory Memorandum eludes tens of thousands of working class people. While he tabled the bill it was unlikely that it was the brainchild of the Minister of Finance, Dr Ashni Singh even though he may have ambitions to be a former President.
Did it emanate from Freedom House? After all it was then President Jagdeo, now the General Secretary of the PPP, whose administration first approved these vulgar benefits as he was approaching the end of his second term in office. Did it arise from within the Office of the President considering that President Ali is now in his last term? Its origins aside, did this matter come up for consideration at Cabinet? If it did, would ministers have had the spine to tell the President that these benefits would be considered shameful on the sidelines of the impoverished communities that they visit on a regular basis?
Former presidents must certainly be treated with dignity and respect for the services they have rendered to the country. But in retirement they are currently benefiting from sumptuous pensions that retirees and pensioners in this country can only dream of. Why should a former President be entitled to an annual vacation allowance equivalent to the cost of two first class return airfares? Why should a former President have tax exemption status when the rest of us have to pay taxes? Do former presidents really want to be in the same class with ExxonMobil and its partners which are not paying taxes? Why should former presidents have access to an undefined number of motor vehicles maintained by the state? Aren’t the engineers of this bill not haunted in the least by memories of the Jagan Lada or is it that those making these decisions have no sense of shame when they marshal the people’s money for their own use?
The presentation of this bill further underlines concerns that the PPP/C has no appreciation of, or empathy for, those who are struggling to get by in this country. If it did, and considering the near four-month hiatus in parliamentary life, it may have surprised the public with a detailed bill on how the cost of living could be addressed and how deep-seated pockets of poverty had been mapped and would be confronted using some of the oil revenues flowing into the country.
This bill is shameless and out of kilter with the more pressing needs of the people of this country.
Discussion