A friend died recently; a man of 75 who had come to terms with a cancer diagnosis and decided to not put himself through the debilitating and nauseating side effects of chemotherapy and radiation. He decided, instead, to enjoy what he could of what life there was left for him. 

For quite some time that proved to be possible, despite his deep concern that his FNPF pension would soon be drastically cut – a concern that no doubt caused him great stress and hastened his demise.

 Unfortunately, the cancer wrecking his body caused him great pain. His last days were not at all easy, nor were they eased as they might have been: and that, to this writer’s mind, is an indictment of many in the world’s medical profession today.

 Aged 18, and about mid-way through a nursing course, I stood beside my ward Sister while she took instructions from a dying patient’s doctor. He said that he would neither increase the dose, nor the frequency, of the morphia being administered to ease the patient’s pain. We tidied the patient’s bedclothes, turned her pillow and made her as comfortable as we could, but it was clear that she was in distress.
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In case anyone may want to accuse me of being a political person, let me say that I have never been a member of a political party nor have I attended a political rally or meeting.

The intention of this letter is to correct two FNPF myths (they are really untruths to put it mildly). 

The first and main untruth is that return on investments and or interest have been paid or credited to annuitants’ conversion amounts accounted for in the FNPF Annual Reports under the title “Pension Buffer Reserve”. 

Not a single cent of return on investment or interest has been credited to the Pension Buffer Reserve (pensioners account). Attached are pages of FNPF Annual Reports from 1975 (commencement date of the pension scheme) to 2010 ^{(Addendum 1 to 18)}. There is no evidence that return on investments or interest has been credited or paid. 

It seems that the FNPF management and Board Members have advised and convinced Government of this untruth resulting in it being incorporated in the Fiji National Provident Fund Transition Decree 2011 (Decree N0. 51).
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It has been said a progressive society educates its young and cares for its elderly.

Whilst the current administration is working at excelling in the education of the young, it is virtually propelling the elderly into poverty.

Since there is no State pension of any consequence and the FNPF is failing its members by not planning adequate pensions for either now or for the future, the government should give favourable consideration to assisting pensioners in other ways. 

They could:

1. Allow pensioners a 50% discount on water bills, or allow free water.
2. Allow pensioners a 50% discount on power bills
3. Allow pensioners 50% discount on all TFL calls (big FNPF shareholding here)

Also given that  $400.000.000 has been gifted to Air Pacific as an unsecured loan by the FNPF of pensioners funds, pensioners could be given a 50% discount on all air travel in return for funding the airline.

They could, but will they ? What do you think?.

 Rick Rickman

LAST year, Air Pacific announced it’s intention to purchase Airbus 330-200.

Its CEO, Dave Pfleiger, even thought it was a great marketing strategy to make the announcement in a grand scale.

I wonder if anyone thought of the considerable cost of changing from Boeing to Airbus, retraining pilots, engineers, support crew, ground handlers and building new hangars. It is mind boggling to think of the cost of these changes.

Dixon Seeto, of the tourism industry, announced the success of incoming tourists into the country and the success of other business houses in 2011, except for Air Pacific.

NICK WILSON
Suva

Dear Mr Kodagoda and associates 

I do not propose to go over the detail of the changes that you have announced in the FNPF reforms but only to comment on the more obvious contradictions, inequities and myths you have created. 

Your FNPF Reforms 

In announcing your reforms to FNPF you have chosen the harshest way of restructuring FNPF and so it seems to deliberately make pensioners suffer.  This will bring hardship and anxiety to some 3,600 of your pensioners who will now receive a significantly reduced pension.  This does not seem to worry any of you?  In addition your consultants have contradicted themselves in  public statements.  This simply brings into question all of your credibility. 

There were, and are other ways of resolving the FNPF problems, that would not have created the hardship and difficulty you have inflicted on pensioners.  It is obvious you do not understand this, or just don’t want to understand or listen to this.  With the exception of Mr Taito,  neither you or your associates have been brave enough to argue your case openly in the public domain and have pursued a bunker mentality in your reaction to the widespread criticism against your proposed reforms. Mr Taito unfortunately fell dramatically short of what was required. He was defiant, defensive and  antagonistic in responding to genuine enquiries of concern that your reforms will bring.  Your public relations efforts in this respect have been a disaster.  One wonders if you cannot manage a public relations exercise how you can then have the nous to make the momentous decisions you have? 

The consultative process has been something of a sick joke, as evidenced by your inability to respond to, or even give the courtesy of an acknowledgement to the  many letters and emails, that have all been written expressing genuine concern at the impact of the changes.  You may have disagreed with these views but you could have at  least had the courtesy to send a simple acknowledgement. 

I have acknowledged to you,  I am a concerned and  interested party, just as I said in an earlier email that both you Mr Kodagoda,  and  you Mr Taito, would be concerned if your employer decided to reduce your remuneration package by more than 50%.  I now hope they do this and you will then know how we feel when we have subscribed to FNPF for some 30 years or more just to find that our contract has been torn up and our pension half of what it was contracted for and should be. 

I am sure you will  have already discarded me as one of those selfish few looking after their own interests,  but let me say again, I have every right to be concerned at your reforms and to protect my interests and to fight for the pension that I have saved for over the past thirty years or so for my retirement, and I make no apology for this. 

Our Contract with FNPF 

Your consultants said in their advice to you that FNPF was contracted to existing pensioners. You have ignored this advice. They further recommended that in restructuring FNPF,  funds should be set aside to provide for the existing pension liability, separate from future pension liabilities.
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No doubt about it – tiny minds make tiny lives – and the evidence is there for all to see in recent letters to our newspapers. Sukha Singh and Rajeev Sharma thoroughly deserve the roasting dished out by Tai Smith of Nasinu (FT 7/1).

It is difficult to even try to understand the motivation behind the thinking of the likes of Sharma and Singh. Such meanness of spirit, paucity of generosity, lack of tolerance. Have you two never had a dream? Have you never ever wanted to do something simply for the fun of it? To do something to lift your spirits with joy?

We have no idea how Talei Burness managed to pay for her sky-dive and we have no right whatsoever to criticise her right or means to do so. For all we know she may have been stashing away $1 a week for years! Other people spend many times that in a week on grog or lottery tickets or any number of other fruitless pastimes.

Here we have a lady (a true lady, this writer can vouch for that) who on her 70^th birthday fulfilled a dream: at the same time doing every pensioner world wide an enormous favour. She showed the rest of us what we are made of. She showed us what we can do if we put our minds to it.

Talei Burness jumped out of a plane at 4,000ft and in free-fall yelled ‘One for the pensioners!’ showing us all that, wrinkles, cellulite, grey hair and creaking bones do not mean that we are over the hill, finished, ex, no more, done for, irrelevant and useless.

Talei Burness is a 70 year old lady with guts and grit. Shame on you Singh and Sharma. Jealous, are you? Envious? Please just take your tiny minds and crawl back into the holes where you belong.