Pensioners along the East Bank Berbice, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) are forced to travel to New Amsterdam to collect their pension despite President Dr Irfaan Ali instructing this should not be the case.
In 2021, pensioners raised the issue of having to travel to New Amsterdam to collect their pension with the Head of State who asked for the issue to be addressed. Upon his second visit to the area in 2023, he expressed disappointment when he was told that the inconvenience experienced by pensioners along the East Bank of Berbice still existed.
He said it is the government’s policy to pay pensions in the communities where the pensioners live.
However, some pensioners from the community told this publication that after the president’s instructions, the officer gave them one payment covering three months. This was done on two occasions, in April and July.
Eighty-two-year-old James Chisholm who lives a few villages away from Mara with his 84-year-old wife Martha, said it was on one occasion that the pension was paid to them in the village. “They have not come back since then,” he said pointing out, that his daughter-in-law would do the honours for him.
For many of the pensioners, they would have to hitch a ride with farmers going to the market and leaving at 22:00h to get to New Amsterdam if they were making the pickup themselves. The farmers return after market hours the following day.
A regular 4×4 pick-up which most of them don’t have access to and which are used by the Human Services Ministry staff to go into communities would take under 90 minutes from New Amsterdam to Mara.
“Nobody coming in here to pay, we does got to go out,” Martha said.
Now only able to see out of one eye, the 84-year-old woman explained that with the assistance of her daughter, it would have been almost impossible for her to go and collect her pension.
“The President said they are supposed to come and pay us every month. They just come and pay the 3 months and they never come back,” she added.
Meanwhile, Seighfred Prass 84, who suffers from a hearing impediment, explained that it would be better if his pension could be taken to him at Mara.
“It would be better for me rather than having to go till in New Amsterdam,” he said while noting that it was last brought to him in July and covered August and September and for October and November, he had to travel to New Amsterdam to uplift his pension.
He has not collected his December pension as yet. Prass said during to 1950s and 1960s even with the poor state of the road network then, his folks received their pension in the village.
“They used to come up here,” he noted.
Another pensioner in the community Selochine Bhagmati, 67, who has spent her entire life living at Mara, says she is still hoping that they would bring November and December pensions to them in the village.
“They are not telling us nothing. We are not hearing anything and share the pension book… They came and pay three months, September was the last that we get pay for,” the pensioner noted.
