The Alliance of Pensioners Organisations refer to the comments by Joseph Grech (April 27) about the service pension entitlement.
There are thousands of other pensioners who, like Grech, are not entitled to a two thirds pension as they have a service pension on retirement. They are entitled only to a single or married rate retirement pension, as the case may be.
It appears that, in his case, the amount of service pension he is entitled to on uncommuted basis, less than €1,866, together with the sum of social security retirement pension, exceeds the two thirds of the maximum pensionable income.
Over 70,000 pensioners, including Grech, had their pensions increased by the cost of living only: €1.75 per week.
The alliance is not happy with the current situation.
However, Grech should at least appreciate that the sum of €1,866 is no longer considered to be deducted from the two thirds pension entitlement.
His remark “why the alliance should sound the fanfare so loud” about this issue was out of place. We are moving to the right direction but at a very slow pace.
Our proposals to the government for each Budget since 2008 always included measures dealing with the service pension and the maximum pensionable income. Regretfully, politicians under different administrations always ignored our requests, deeming them unsustainable.
We support the negotiations taking place to award a service pension to members of the judiciary and to any other group.
However, we always expect that people entitled to a service pension are treated equally.
In my contribution on this issue it was stated that “it is expected that, concurrently with these negotiations, the government should also embark on a mission to solve once and for all the problem of thousands of pensioners who are entitled to a service pension”. It seems Grech missed this part.
Our policy and interests are always focused to protect the well-being and dignity of pensioners. The priority of the alliance is to pronounce itself on current realities about pensions without fear or favour.