OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT RELEASE
PNCR DOUBLE-STANDARDS
The Office of the President is responding to the public advertisement by the PNCR reacting to the Bill laid by the administration in Parliament addressing benefits and facilities for Former Presidents. The view of the Office of the president is that this public posture by the PNCR reflects more of their double-standards and their duplicity.
The Bill laid by the PPP/C Administration seeks to make statutory provisions for benefits and facilities that are currently provided by custom and practice or through Cabinet decisions.
Responding to the calls and its commitment to transparency and accountability, this Bill has sought to make conditions, facilities and benefits already enjoyed or that were being enjoyed by Former Presidents into law to be statute bound.
In essence Former Presidents, already by custom and practice, are eligible and have been or were enjoying:
- Vehicles and the use of vehicles that were owned and maintained by the State;
- The facilities provided by utility companies free of cost;
- Were already being provided with household support (household staff);
- Their medical expenditure was taken care of by the State;
- They were already in receipt of security at their homes and personal to them; and
- They were already receiving tax exemptions on the procurement and the purchase of items, household and personal effects.
So the efforts by the PNCR TO ADDRESS THE MOVE TO MAKE THESE BENEFITS AND THEIR PROVISION STATUTORY BOUND AND NO LONGER AT DISCRETION OF THE CABINET ARE INDEED REFLECTIVE OF THEIR DOUBLE STANDARD.
They have called for and championed transparency and the Administration in its action on this Bill to provide for transparency in the provision of goods and services to Former Presidents has suddenly become the basis for an attack by the PNCR.
It should be known that what the Bill confers as benefits and facilities to the Former Presidents are benefits and conditions that are already being provided in other jurisdictions to their former heads, and indeed when compared with the size of those benefits, what is being proposed, what is intended here is indeed minimal.
It is the intention of the Office of the President to respond in much greater detail at my press briefing tomorrow and to illustrate the levels to which the double standard of the PNC has taken them in the public domain and to provide further illustration, particularly with regards to this matter, of their duplicity.
April 28, 2009
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