So, Silver Surfers, they have done what we knew, right from the beginning they planned to do – hijack the FNPF. At first hearing it was great, wasn’t it? Wow! Initial pension allocation to be refunded regardless of prior payments over the years. Wow? More like DUH!
Yet again (yawn) the perilous state of overseas pensions was hauled up as an example of why the FNPF is entitled to pull the plug on its senior pensioners. Do they think we are dumb? (Yes, they do actually – but we know they are dumber). Let’s get this straight and in clear bold print: The overseas pensions which are being cut are Government pensions. They are pensions which are funded from taxpayer’s money.
The FNPF is owned by its members and the government has just stolen it from us. It has as good as put our contracts and agreements through the paper shredder and told us to ‘get stuffed’. The Government in annexing the FNPF is guilty of grand larceny. The FNPF is guilty of ‘larceny by servant’. Because, indeed, the FNPF is the servant of its members.
At the same time the FNPF has (a) conned those on the lower pensions into thinking an extra $50 will see them right, mate. And (b) attempted to ‘wipe its hands’ of this issue by telling its older pensioners, ‘OK – Here’s your money back – we no longer have an agreement.’
Bull dust! Of course you have an agreement – a contract. And when you allocated an amount to be utilised as pension, it was long before the devaluation, to say nothing of weekly price hikes in the shops. The cost of living is rising weekly – we are all talking about it for heaven’s sake – it is the main topic of conversation these days.
To add insult to injury Civil Servants are to receive a 20% pay increase. Well – perhaps this is fair enough, because it must be horribly boring sitting in a Govt department for hours on end doing nothing. Perhaps the increase is a hardship payment?
Phoning the powers that be last year to arrange for the replacement of a TIN# letter, each time I got through on the phone I was treated to a woman quoting from the bible (yes, bible with a lower case b) which I was required to listen to before I was attended to. So much for separation of church and state.
Phone any govt dept (yes, lower case g) for something specific and you can guarantee you will be passed on to at least 4 extensions before you get the person who can hopefully, but not necessarily, be of assistance. Worse comes to worst, you will be told that the only person who can deal with this issue is either ‘sick’ or ‘on leave’ and please call later. When? I don’t know.
More worrying is the fact that if you visit/phone a govt department on, say, 3 different days, to discuss the same simple issue, you will be given 3 different answers!
I am currently in touch with a businessman who is planning to invest in Fiji next year. I shall tell him to forget it until at least 2015 because we shall all need at least a year post elections to assess in which direction Fiji is moving. For some time to come it is doubtful that any agreement or contract will be honoured. Signed today – shredded tomorrow.
So – Fiji Pensioners – we have just been given a kick in the teeth. Are we going to buckle under and belly-up? I don’t think so!
Rally to the cry, Grey-power!
F-N-P-F YOU’VE GONE TOO FAR!
WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!
Fiji Pensioners 
Stan Masih said:
FNPF supported by The Fiji Times and the Fiji Sun are telling the pensioners that the reduction of thier pensions are good for the pensioners.I cannot understand the logic behind these statements.However most of the pensioners who are receiving more than $300.00 will be getting a surprise when they go to convert to the new rates.There will be a lot of hues and cries when realisation kicks in that thier pensions have gone down substantially.
Talei Burness said:
We could start a ‘senior pensioners’ squatter settlement in Albert Park perhaps?
And Stan – people here do not “hue and cry’, they simply roll over and die……
that’s why FNPF think that they can get away with it. That’s why these individuals have so much power – because of the above apathetic mindset. A “hue and cry”? I don’t think so! As one of the newspapers recently referred to them – “the silent majority”.
And of course the FNPF and government ‘fatcats’ – jowls, fat and powerful! Oh, and I forgot, cruel and greedy too.
As my Bubu Eleni used to say about such individuals, “mai aso, mai vale ka mino”, which literally translated means “my a………s, in their house they have nothing” – or inferring “who do they think they are and where did they come from”?
I would like to repeat a saying from Budha, which I have posted previously:
there are three things which cannot be hidden, the sun, the moon and THE TRUTH”.
La Passionara said:
What amazes me about the budget is how much it feeds on the greed of people. It pits citizen against citizen because it picks off those who are already panicked within the pensioners’ group about losing the only income they have, and dangles the carrot in front of those who had massive balances at retirement.
The budget also takes the responsibility away from people to pay for Fiji’s infrastructure (eg roads, water supply etc that we all use) by reducing the taxes (nominally in terms of actual benefits going to individuals in dollar terms). The money needed for public works is now borrowed from China; therefore future generations will end up paying for it.
It is an irresponsible budget feeding off both greed and fear. The unjust enrichment represented by the increase in the ‘civil pensions’ of 20% mainly benefits the entitlements of ministers and judges since very few civil servants or disciplined forces remain on the old civil pension scheme.
It really is an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ budget. What are they smoking in those cheroots?
Wilson said:
What if we pensioners all take our money out as offered by FNPF. Wouldn’t it leave the funds battered and worse off from the sudden surge of blood letting of the fund. We should get together to map out some strategies to counter this proposal by FNPF. Things like total withdrawal of our premium and setting up another scheme through properly scrutinised investment which will be the means of funding our pension payments. We can no longer trust FNPF as they can do as they like without due concern of its legality or the suffering of its pensioners and they don’t seem to be doing a good job with our money. Also government is dipping deeply into the funds, the repayment of which is a cause for concern. Who knows what silly thing the FNPF administrators will do next time around when something tickles their fancy.