WESTERN BUREAU- Opposition leader Bruce Golding is demanding a review of the current pension scheme in place for teachers and other public sector workers, saying the funds should be better invested to create a bigger pool.

Golding, on Saturday, described the existing structure as woefully inadequate, suggesting that public pensions, tied as they were to salary, were bound to be small.

“I am not satisfied with the arrangement under which teachers and indeed all public servants are provided with pension benefit,” he said in Montego Bay.

“We should start examining the entire government pension arrangement to ensure that we provide our government workers, including our teachers with a better deal than they currently have.”

Golding has put forward the alternative of a professional pension plan for government workers, under which contributions would be funnelled into what he called properly managed investments.

Such investments, he said, would provide the returns required to keep pensions in line with or above inflation.

Golding, who is also leader of the Jamaica Labour Party, argued that pensions for retired public sector workers were treated as a budgetary provision which, overtime, becomes “meaningless because your pension is tied to your salary at the time you were working.”

He was speaking at an awards ceremony in Montego Bay to honour some 300 teachers in East Central St James, a constituency represented by the JLP’s Ed Bartlett.

The opposition leader said if the local currency should be devalued, he feared that pensioners might be unable to afford necessities such as groceries, utility bills and health care, noting in the case of the latter that the need intensified with the advancement of age.

He acknowledged that the government of the day has made efforts to give incremental increases to pensioners, saying however, that those efforts were not enough.

“In 1999, for example, the government increased all pensions by 50 per cent, but at the time that 50 per cent was not enough to make up for inflation that they had suffered since the last time the pensions were increased,” said the opposition leader.

“Therefore, ever so often government pensioners are low paid.” Golding, meanwhile, was critical of government’s inclusion of private pension schemes in the pension reform programme now underway, arguing that the private plans were “running fairly well without any interference from government.”

“I am not saying that we don’t need to provide any legislative framework, but I am disappointed that we did not look in more detail at the pension arrangements for government.”

Golding also noted that this year’s budget provision of $1.2 billion for retired teachers averaged $27,500 a month, but said some would get considerably less.

“Don’t get fooled by the average … I mean, there are some pensioners that are getting more, particularly those who retired recently and have retired in a higher salary scale, but you have teachers who retired 10 years ago and are getting $15,000 a month,” said the JLP leader.

“That cannot take care of the electricity bill and the water and buy the medication and provide food on the table,” Golding remarked.

hinesh@jamaicaobserver.com