The United Nations General Assembly in its resolution 14/106 of December, 14th 1990 designated October First of every year as the International Day of Elder Persons. By its resolution of 21st December, 1995 the United Nations General Assembly re-designated the International Day for the Elderly as International Day for Elder Persons.

Vivien A. Vanterpool

It is obvious, therefore, that this celebration aims at helping to create or establish awareness of the welfare and needs of our senior citizens and to sensitise the members of the public and particularly governments of their retired personnel to their obligations, duties and responsibilities to these individuals.

Society should perceive the elderly as very valuable assets but I am afraid that successive Governments in the Caribbean, and Anguilla, are high on a list of governments which do not. They frequently discard us, as soon as we reach the retiring age as if we are used rags. This retiring age is a legacy handed down from the age of colonialism, which satisfied our colonial masters and still continues in this day and age. This practice still appertains even in the independent countries of the English-speaking Caribbean. You see this suited the colonial office very admirably to the detriment of the ingenious population- (The Pensioners of the Public Services).

It is therefore, no doubt that the elderly should occupy an important position in the society as they can make significant and positive contributions to the social, cultural, economic and spiritual development of our nation. Each of us can further contribute with our specific expertise and experiences. Unfortunately, however, we are cast aside to fend for ourselves on our measly pensions or, MORE PRECISELY, PITTANCES.

With Anguilla’s economic development catering for the upper end of the tourism market, pensioners of the early seventies to the late nineties have seen their meagre pensions or pittances worth virtually nothing in this age of high cost of living that has been initiated because of the tourism product.

To quote an example, when I left the Public Service as a Principal after thirty-six years two months and twenty-seven day- (entire teaching career), with twenty of these years as Principal of four schools, my salary was less than two thousand dollars a month, and with a pension of less than one thousand dollars a month. In fact, my gratuity was less than fifty thousand dollars. From these figures you can deduce what trained and untrained teachers’ or Petty Officers’ salaries were and compare what their pension and gratuity would be.

Successive governments never ever addressed these issues. Over the years these same governments initiated what is termed as Across the Board Increases which have been and continue to be unfair to the lower grades of the Public Service. However, I must congratulate the present government for carrying out a Salaries Review this year. Having said this, let me point out very forcefully that pensioners should have been consulted for their penny’s worth of contribution to the exercise as a group who have given YEOMAN service to these governments over the years. Please remember we were the architects of the service particularly after 1967.

Seeing that we bore the brunt and the heat of the day, we should receive from the bonanza harvest our fair share of the proceeds. To achieve this I call on this government and successive governments to acquiesce to the following suggestions which I believe are fair and equitable to all concerned.

We are not begging for anything but to rightfully receive our fair share of the cake as the cost of living has whittled away the buying power of our pittances.

(a) The Public Service of Anguilla has grown by leaps and bounds, and so has its economy since 1967, and as such an increased number of statutory bodies exist. I am confident that most if not ALL retired civil servants with their varied experiences and expertise can fill some or all of these positions.

(b) I stand to be corrected that a pensioner should be on Social Security Board, to represent the views and concerns of pensioners. I have been made to understand that this is not the case at present. “If” and I say “If” this is so it should be rectified as soon as is practicably possible.

(c) I wrote a correspondence to my Representative some months ago indicating that government should do something for pensioners other than the Across the Board increases when civil servants get increases. Pensioners are suffering extreme hardships because of the High Cost of Living in Anguilla.

(d) I hereby beg to carry this suggestion further. All civil servants pensions should based on the points in scales in which they retired from the service and equated with these points in the New Salary Scales as they obtain whenever there is a Salary Revision.

This to my mind, fellow Anguillians, would be a fair and equitable to those of us and future Public Servants to receive their fair portions of the Anguillian “pie”.
I am therefore calling on government to respond positively to:-

(i) Make the foregoing suggestions a priority, beginning by meeting with a delegation from Civil Service Pensioners.

(ii) Making maximum use of the experiences and expertise of Anguillian’s Pensioners.

(iii) Finally making a tangible effort in alleviating the economic hardships which ALL PENSIONERS, especially government ones, are undergoing. There is time to place this exercise in the Government’s Budget, draft and final draft, for 2007.
There can be no better time to initiate the monetary aspect of the request seeing that it coincides with the United Nations General Assembly’s Resolution 45/106 of December 14th 1990 – International Day for ELDERLY PERSONS, 1st October 1995.

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