Full pension entitlement

I refer to the letter 'The entitlement to a full pension' by Charles Zammit (The Sunday Times, October 11).

I am a British resident married to a Maltese. I worked in Malta as an engineer for nearly 19 years and, like Mr Zammit, I paid full national insurance contributions during this time and retired at the age of 61, which was 18 months ago.

I also receive a Ministry of Defence (MOD) pension because I served in the RAF. I was told I would get a two-thirds pension for the years I worked here. After social services were told about the MOD pension, my pension here was reduced to just over one third of that. This is totally wrong because the MOD pension comes from the UK and costs Malta nothing. In fact, Malta benefits from this as I live on this pension and spend it in Malta.

Also, the fluctuation between the euro and the pound sterling is a big problem, making quite a difference to my income. None of this is taken into account when calculating the Maltese pension.

If I had been an Australian citizen, my service pension would have been called a social service pension, and would not be taken into account when calculating the Maltese pension! Why the difference between the two?

Like Mr Zammit, I hope that this injustice is eliminated sooner rather than later.