Alternattiva Demokratika yesterday appealed to the Government to tackle the injustices faced by a number of pensioners. AD social policy spokeswoman Angele Deguara raised the case of a number of ex-employees of the Malta Electricity Board.

“In the 1960s, two Cabinet decisions and an official circular issued by the board of directors made it clear that these workers were identical to government employees and that they would be entitled to the same pension conditions. However, these pensioners were never given their rightful pension. Their rights have been ignored by six prime ministers,” she said.

She added that a recent court ruling has stated these pensioners should have been given equivalent pension entitlements to those of government employees but, because the case had become time-barred, the court could not enforce this right.

AD spokesman for EU and international affairs Arnold Cassola said there were other pension anomalies.

Disabled people were entitled to 55 per cent of the minimum wage which resulted “in a pittance of a pension”, while people with two part-time jobs had a pension based on two thirds of only one part-time job, he said.

Meanwhile, former Barclays and British public or military service employees had had their foreign government or private company pension subtracted from their two-thirds Malta pension by the Government since the 1970s.