Brensil Rolle Attacking The Pensioners

The smiling Minister for the Public Service Brensil Rolle was pleased to announce in the press last week that he and his FNM Government of the People’s Time are to fire 126 pensioners from the public service.  The Government under the PLP had a policy of reengaging pensioned workers whose skills were still needed in the service or who needed to remain because they had various financial or other obligations that were not completed that required their continued salary.  They got both pension and gratuity.  Each time the FNM comes to office, this is a problem for them.  They usually begin by illegally stripping the pensioner’s pensions.  Now they have a wholesale plan to fire all of the pensioners. Again many of these people voted for them. The FNM and their accountant friends just see numbers not human suffering or compassion. The fact is that people are having by necessity to start buying their homes later and so reach retirement age and are still paying mortgages.  Given the state of our economy, and its structure many pensioners are still helping their children with their homes and many are raising their grandchildren. People forget the HIV/ Drug epidemic that swept through The Bahamas in the 1980s and 1990s left many grandparents having to raise children again because many of their children died in those times. What we want to know is whether this means that mean Joshua Sears who is a consultant at the Office of the Prime Minister, and for whom a special pension act was passed by Hubert Ingraham to allow him to get a pension early, is set to be let go?  And what about all the police officers and prison officers  and RBDF officers are they all to go who have served and are working on year to year because their services are still needed by the Force.  But hey it’s the people’s time.