FNPF FOLLY

26 Thursday Jan 2012

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Silver surfers – have you seen the FNPF full page ads in the papers? They cost around F$1000 – and you are paying for them! 

Let’s look at the claims:
The FNPF Life Pension is as good a retirement product as you can get anywhere else in the world. 

Only if your pension is not arbitrarily cut! 

  • Starting at 8.7% at 55 years the rates increase the older you are when you opt for pension. 

These muppets can’t even speak English!

  • Not only are these rates of a lifetime (tax free and no administration fee), your pension is also for life. 

(More bad English). That’s what they told us when we were forced to join up. But that has changed – and can just as easily be changed again. Beware the reduced pension all you new pensioners.

  • Make a smart choice now – it’s a choice about the rest of your life!

Yeah – tell us about it! That’s what we thought when we signed up all those years ago!

The ad goes on…If you are a current pensioner you need to be validated, counselled and choose your preferred option under the new pension scheme before 29 February, 2012. 

We do NOT need to be validated – we are already valid human beings. Perhaps we might need to be identified. 

Counselled? Counselling is for people who are at a loss. We are not at a loss. Our contracts have been broken and we know exactly where we stand, and we are going to fight for our rights tooth and nail. Pensioners are intelligent and expect to discuss their options – they do not require counselling 

The ad ends…All correspondence to be addressed to the Chief Executive Officer. Yeah – we all know that will end up in the WPB! 

And by the way – a Savusavu pensioner went to the FNPF office yesterday to discuss his options and was told that the new pension date would be April 1st – interesting! Phone calls to the FNPF in Suva today elicited no better info than that Feb 29 is the cut off date and ‘pension reforms have already started’. 

Watch this space… 

Last Nail in FNPF coffin for pensioners by Dr Wadan Narsey

26 Thursday Jan 2012

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FNPF Transition Decree – last nail in FNPF coffin for pensioners

by Dr Wadan Narsey

The illegal President has signed the unlawful “Fiji National Provident Fund Transition Decree” which trashes lawful contracts between FNPF and pensioners, takes away their basic human rights to personal property, and removes their basic human right to take their just FNPF grievances to court (while it shamelessly claims that no one’s human rights are adversely affected by this Decree).

The FNPF Transition Decree claims in Part 2, that:
“the principal object of this Part is to ensure that the arrangements for the provision of annuities by the Board are sustainable, non-discriminatory, and do not involve cross subsidy of one group (pensioners and annuitants) by another (FNPF members).”

Such phrases are also in the draft FNPF Act, and the drafters have no idea (or they don’t care) how internally inconsistent all these phrases are even within their Decrees (elaborated below).

The Decree makes a pathetic attempt to justify itself by referring to IMF, World Bank, ILO and “actuarial experts” who we know all recommended reductions of future annuities, but none recommended the breaking of lawful contracts and basic human rights to property nor of denying recourse to justice for existing pensioners.  

These agencies need to be publicly challenged as to whether they lend their support to this unlawful Decree which undermines laws of contracts and fundamental human rights of pensioners in Fiji.

The Decree has five Parts:

Part 2:  Terminates the current pensioners’ claims
Part 3:  Share investment scheme (not commented on here)
Part 4:  Protections  (what a farce).
Part 5:  Regulations (not commented here)

Part 2:  Trashing lawful contracts

Despite the FNPF CEO’s strange claim that pensioners do not have a “contract” but an “agreement”, the facts all suggest that pensioners do have lawful contracts approved by the elected Fiji Parliament:

I remind again, Article 4 of the FNPF Act states that the FNPF Board shall be a body corporate and shall, by the name of “The Fiji National Provident Fund Board”, have perpetual succession and a common seal …. The Board may sue and be sued in its corporate name and may enter into contracts.
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The Wolf You Feed

24 Tuesday Jan 2012

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One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.  He said, “My son, the battle is between 2 “wolves” inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” 

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” 

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Distraught Senior Citizen

18 Wednesday Jan 2012

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   A distraught senior citizen phoned her doctor’s office.
     “Is it true,” she wanted to know,  “that the medication
     you prescribed has to be taken  for the rest of my life?”

 “‘Yes, I’m afraid so,”‘ the doctor told her.

 There was a moment of silence before the senior lady replied, 
“I’m wondering, then, just how serious is my condition because this prescription is marked

     ‘NO REFILLS’.”

A Bit of Fun

13 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Daily Humour

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Ladies! Do you despair of ever finding a comfortable bra that does its job properly? A bra that lifts, and has comfortable straps, and doesn’t form armrests under one’s armpits. A bra that bestows a bit of cleavage – well, when you’ve not much else to show off, a nice pair of uplifted pointy boobs would do wonders for sagging self-esteem, now, wouldn’t it. 

Today’s fashions are very odd indeed, don’t you think? Starting at the top, the female head of hair looks as if hours went into the washing and styling, then it was pushed backwards through a hedge. Men seem to favour the ‘hedgehog’ look like that sports-casting fellow on CNN.
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Surrender your Credit Cards NOW

12 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in Articles & Reports

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On 5 January 2012 Reserve Bank of Fiji confirmed the implementation of the Credit Card Levy (CCL) as announced in the 2012 Budget. The Credit Card Levy will be implemented with effect from 1 January 2012 by all commercial banks issuing credit cards.

Key features of the Credit Card Levy
• A charge to customers at the rate of 2 percent on the outstanding balance at the end of each month (commencing January 2012).
• The imposition of the CCL is based on the month end balance (i.e. debt), irrespective of the statement date or due date for payment of the balance. Hence you have to pay an extra 2% on all your purchases.
• The month end balance is inclusive of any interest and other bank charges. So you pay an additional 2% on all bank charges.

NOTE: This only applies to credit cards issued by Fiji Banks so the Government is deliberately penalising Fiji Citizens.

Save this expense by giving up your Credit Cards and take out a Debit Card, or pay cash.

The Muppets who dreamed up this levy clearly do not appreciate it will increase the use of cash, which will increase the sale of Brown Paper Bags, which in turn will result in Black Money Cash on which taxes will be avoided, end result… We all lose… Corruption is not Dead…….. Neither is Bureaucratic Stupidity and Greed 

Talei

08 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in Letters

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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 70th 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.

WANTED URGENT, a Dressmakers Dummy

07 Saturday Jan 2012

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Calling all silver surfers and pensioners! We have a little old lady who needs to find a Dressmaker’s Dummy as soon as possible. She plans to sew into a vast old age to eke out her meagre pension. In this way she plans to thwart the FNPF muppets. 

It doesn’t have to be a new dummy, but it must be adjustable because ladies come in adjustable sizes. Our little old lady would like it to be in fairly good condition, and she is willing to pay a fair price for it. (Blow up dolls excepted). 

Since our little old lady is still able to see, speak, and hear, even though her use-by date expired long ago, she is still able to drive and will be more than happy to collect her purchase. 

Fijipensioners.com confirms that this is a genuine request – please see her advertisement in the ‘wanted to buy’ column in the Fiji Times 07/1.

FTHF Dave is Back ! or is He ?

07 Saturday Jan 2012

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“Air Pacific will increase its flights to Sydney by flying 13 times everyday in a week except on Monday.”                          

Managing Director and CEO, Dave Pflieger said that the increase in flights will come into effect on January 15th. ( As published by Fiji Village )

Thirteen times everyday Dave, what have you been smoking in the USA?, almost every flight during the holiday period has suffered extensive delays and that is on one flight a day.

We think you should give the Fiji Pensioners back their $200,000,000.