Disgruntled pensioners to meet with prime minister

Prime Minister Gaston Browne has agreed to meet with the President of the Pensioners Association and others for a meeting that will determine the next course of action.

Evans Bennette, the president of the association told OBSERVER media yesterday that the November 21st meeting is the final attempt to get the government to stop shirking in its responsibility to pay pensioners on time.

“We are really frustrated. Members keep calling the office every day. Some of them in tears because their payments are late,” he said.

Bennette said pensioners were promised “time after time”, that their payments would be made on time but “we are still being paid late”.

He said the pensioners have already decided on a form of action to put pressure on the government but according to him, “I want to give them [the government] one last chance to explain to us why we are being paid so late”.

Now, the government has said the failure by certain companies to pay Social Security benefits on behalf of their workers has caused pension payments to be delayed for the last few months.

In fact, Social Security has been using its Facebook page to suggest that the organisation was “experiencing funding challenges due to the low returns of remittances”.

But Bennette, like many other pensioners, believes that the government can find some other means to fix the problem.

Surprisingly, Bennette said pensioners are knowledgeable of money being spent on projects that are only now coming on stream.