Sugar workers pension is sign of imminent election: Ramesh

Ramesh L. Maharaj is not impressed with the government of Trinidad and Tobago's pledge to provide $400 million to fund pensions for former employees of Caroni (1975) Limited.

Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira has said she would hand over the cheque on Christmas Eve. Some people are seeing it as a long-overdue Christmas present although the money won't be available any time soon and should have been deposited at the time the company closed in 2003.

The Tabaquite MP has a different take on it.

"When Prime Minister Patrick Manning decides to try and give former sugar workers their land and their pension after six years, it suggests that he wants to call an election," Maharaj told the Trinidad Express.

He stressed that while it sounds like a generous offer, the government is still short-changing the former sugar workers, noting that the government promised in 2003 to fund their pension, which was in deficit.

He said the separation package indicated that the money would be paid and that the deficit would include the interest that was due to the fund.

"That has not happened. And what the Government is trying to do is to give them some benefits now," Maharaj said.

The former attorney general said the former sugar workers now receive a pension of $550 and noted that if the government had paid the pension as promised nearly seven years ago the pension amount would have been between $1,500 to $2,000 a month per worker.

He wants to study the proposal more carefully to determine what the sugar workers are getting is what is fully due to them.

Maharaj said the government seems to be changing the rules on the former sugar workers.

He told the paper that there was no price tag on lands in the separation agreement yet the Manning administration is now demanding between $25,000 and $30,000 for the land that is due to them.

Maharaj has promised the former workers that he would fight on their behalf to have that money refunded.

He has threatened legal action. "If the sugar workers are going to be short-changed ... and robbed with respect to their pensions and other entitlements, I am afraid I would have to resort to public interest litigation to protect them. I would not be able to accept that," Maharaj said.

He plans to meet with the former sugar workers early in the new year to discuss all the matters relating to their separation agreement.

"I believe the matter has to be resolved quickly because the sugar workers have waited long."

Opposition leader Basdeo Panday told the Express he cannot comment because he does not have details of the arrangement. However he noted that it is long overdue.

Both Maharaj and Panday are in London and are expected to return home in January. The former political allies are facing off against each other in internal elections for the leadership of the United National Congress (UNC) on January 24, 2010.