Regional P.S.U Official Says Pension Reform Is a Topic across the Region

Thomas Letang

The association’s General-Secretary, Thomas Letang, was first elected to that post seventeen years ago right here in Belize. And now that he is once again in Belize, we asked him what have been the major accomplishments in that capacity during his time. Letang told us that he has made sure that he and his team familiarize themselves with the issues that affect public officers in the various countries and territories, and to intervene on their behalf. He said that government pension is a topic that is being discussed across the region, but that in the countries where it has already been reviewed, public officers retire at age sixty and they contribute towards their own pension.

Thomas Letang, General Secretary, Caribbean Public Services Association

“In my country, pension is contributory, and the pension age that is the retirement age, sorry, the retirement age in Dominica, for example, is 60 years, but you receive your pension benefit from the Dominican Social Security at 65. So the union had to come in. And we made representation, we negotiated with the government for a bridge pension, and that is for the government to pay to public officers the pension for five years, and at 65, Social Security takes over. We do not have a national retirement age. The 60 applies to public officers, but what happened is that even the private sector has been falling on government. And while they will not tell you to leave at 60, but many of them, at 60, you leave and you get your pension from Social Security. But in the past three or four, five years, since Social Security has brought up the benefit age to 65, we’re still having a problem because the bridge pension does not apply to the private sector workers. It only applied to the public officers, but that was because of our own Intervention and recommendation.”