PM promises help for seniors

Prime Minister Patrick Manning yesterday gave the assurance that his Government “was moving to implement increases to the National Insurance pension provisions”.

At present NIB pensions are about half of the old age pension. But the Prime Minister in his address  at the launch of the 2003 Geriatric Adolescent Partnership Programme (GAPP) at the Crowne Plaza, also  lamented that there was a comparatively low level of involvement of adolescent males in GAPP. “It is worrisome, the low ratio of males to females in so many positive aspect of our social development. And it is therefore clear to me that these and other related challenges must engage the government, planner and architects of social reform programmes,” he said.

Manning stressed that care, respect, responsibility and commitment were personality or character traits which needed to be developed in both the male and female population. “We would have to find ways of climbing out of this situation,” he said. Manning — who was scheduled to be the feature speaker at the launch of the 2003 Geriatric Adolescent Partnership Programme at the Crowne Plaza yesterday — had to attend the funeral of former Chief of Defence Staff, Commodore Mervyn Williams.  But his address was read by Minister of Community Development and Gender Affairs, Joan Yuille-Williams

Manning in the address noted that the old population was increasing at a faster rate than any other group in Trinidad and Tobago. He said the projection for the next 20 years was that the percentage of persons sixty and over in Trinidad and Tobago would rise by over 50 per cent, compared with the previous two decades. He said that while some people saw the increasingly ageing population as a problem, the Government did not view the elderly and increases in their life expectancy as a problem.