Government continues heartlessness towards pensioners
Statement Sotiroulla Charalambous, member of the Political Bureau of the C.C. of AKEL
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 13th May 2014, Nicosia
Once again the government with its familiar tactic of spreading misinformation and confusion is trying to mislead the people and shake off its responsibilities with regards the dramatic decline in the living standards of thousands of low-income pensioners.
Faced with the cry of anguish and despair of the thousands of pensioners who protested at the abolition of the Easter bonus and the arbitrary changes to the criteria for the granting of the special allowance to pensioners, the deputy Government Spokesman had nothing else to say other than the well-known hymn that “all the measures were taken by the previous government and Minister of Labour-cadre of the Pancyprian Federation of Labour”. This assertion is false.
Once again the Anastasiades – DISY party government did not find the political courage and honesty to assume the political responsibility for its own actions and decisions. Instead, the government chose the hideous distortion of reality, sound-bites, communication tricks and unethical attacks.
The facts, however, disprove them and leave them even more exposed, as regards the continuing heartlessness towards pensioners.
It is the government of Nikos Anastasiades which on 10th April 2013 on the decision of the Council of Ministers decided to significantly reduce the poverty line to €10.324 for a solitary household and to €15.486 for a two members’ household. As a result of this decision, several thousand pensioners completely lost the special allowance with a loss of up to €3000 per year, while for 50,000-60,000 pensioners it means losing up to €2.000 per year.
It is the Nikos Anastasiades government which in the Memorandum it signed with the Troika in April agreed in paragraph 2.10 that “it will further streamline the Easter Allowance to pensioners” and for the implementation of this agreement with the Troika it adopted on 04.03.2013 a relevant decision of the Council of Ministers. Setting a limit of a €500 pension for a single person and €750 for 2 people it effectively excluded the vast majority of pensioners from the Easter Bonus, given that for a pensioner couple the minimum pension is €751.
It is the Nikos Anastasiades government that recently decided secretly to calculate as an income the Area Payments Scheme, denying the special grant to even a few thousand low-income farmers.
It is the Nikos Anastasiades government that decided to tax pensioner’s property.
The way the government responded to the pensioner’s reaction, despair and agony unfortunately confirms one thing and one thing only, that is to say, disrespect and disregard for the elderly.
But what else can pensioners and the wider society expect from a government whose ruling party considers that the provision of social benefits to pensioners are to blame for the crisis and which considers the Memorandum as its own ideological-political political manifesto?
