During the years I have been serving as a member of the European Parliament for Malta and Gozo, thousands of you from all over the country have spoken to me about issues which directly or indirectly affect their lives, asking for my help with finding solutions or further information. One of the main issues that so many of you have raised with me is the concern that you have with the adequacy of your pension.

It is not only pensioners, or soon-to-be pensioners, who are anxious. Younger people, are also worried because they know that when their turn comes, they have little guarantee of enjoying the fruits of their labour.

A Times of Malta report recently said that three in five people are worried about not having an adequate income upon attaining pensionable age, with the biggest fears being among those of you aged between 35 and 49.

It is clear that while there are sectors that are enjoying the abrupt benefits of an immediate surge in economic growth, there are many others whom the economy has left behind. The gap between rich and poor has increased dramatically. 

Pensioners are one of the sectors hardest hit. We have a large and ever-growing number of Maltese and Gozitans who rely on State pensions and who are finding increasing difficulty in making it to the end of the month. With the cost of living steadily and consistently on the rise, pensioners are not sharing in the economic boom so much vaunted by this government.

Karmenu’s story was an eye-opener to the realities that so many of you are facing on a daily basis. He is in his 70s and depends on the pension for which he has worked and paid for all his life. In his St Julian’s home, I listened as he told me: “Malta has become no country for old men”.

Karm has no companies stashed away in Panama, he never opened a bank account in Dubai, and he has no secret trust funds in New Zealand to rely upon. He has not been awarded any cushy consultancy roles as an excuse to send money his way.

Too many pensioners are living too close to poverty for comfort, and we need solutions urgently

Karm grows increasingly worried as the end of the month creeps closer. He would never complain. He would never ask a minister to help him out – that is the politics he hates. He just wants what should be rightfully his – a retirement in peace, with the possibility of giving the occasional nannu gift to his grandchildren, of whom he speaks with pride.

It is easy to understand how someone like Karm feels when he hears this government boasting about paying its backbenchers and hangers-on over €100 an hour for God knows what, when he knows that it was his back upon which this economy is built.

Pensions must match economic growth, otherwise we risk a generation of pensioners unable to afford to live in our own country.

It is not only the inadequacy of your pensions that is cause for concern. There are very specific difficulties among those of you pensioners who, through their work abroad or with the British Services, earned the right to some sort of pension coming from outside the country. Those entitled to a service pension have been among those most aggrieved.

They have fought for years, even resorting to EU channels, for the deductions in their Maltese pensions to be reimbursed – some of them have already lost thousands of euros a year. With subsequent governments having failed to remove the deductions, and reimburse what was deducted, it is time that this is addressed once and for all.

With Brexit looming, they are naturally even more concerned.

The government has an opportunity to make this right. It should not squander it.

Too many pensioners are living too close to poverty for comfort, and we need solutions urgently. Many of you do not have the re-sources or the energy to spend years in court fighting for your rights, and the government should not take advantage of this, but should find an immediate and fair solution.

Those of you pensioners who have spoken to me have different circumstances and scenarios, but you all agree on one point. You do not want hand-outs, and you definitely do not want charity.

You just want what is rightfully yours. You want to be able to live in dignity in your own country, financially independently, while close to and enjoying your children and grandchildren.

Is that too much to ask?

@RobertaMetsola

Roberta Metsola is a Nationalist Party MEP.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece

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