Pension pain at Accountant General's Dept
Published:Friday | May 4, 2018 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
In the early part of 2017, I was out of the country for some time. As a result, my life certificate was received late by the Accountant General's Department, although I usually sent it by mail, without any problems. On my return to Jamaica, I discovered that no payment had been made for several months.
I visited the Accountant General's Development, where I signed a new certificate and was promised that I would soon get the payment.
In January 2018, I started getting some payments, but not all that were due to me. As a result, I visited the office in January and again in April, when there was no change to the situation with the retroactive payment. In January when I visited, I was promised faithfully that I would get the payment by April, but this has not happened. I am still to receive the overdue payment, and the department has not contacted me to explain if there has been a problem.
Sick and tired
I have reached to the point where I have got sick and tired of calling their office and even hiring a taxi to take me to Kingston to recover money for which I have already worked. Today when I checked my WhatsApp account, I was informed that the money would be ready by May 24. As you will no doubt understand, I have very little confidence in this happening.
In case you will question my frustration and lack of confidence in the promises made by the department, I would like to point out that I experienced similar problems when I was due to receive my lump sum payment upon retiring from the public education system. At that time, I waited for an extraordinarily long time for my application to be processed, and was told at different times about what documents were missing from my file. I also discovered that I was not the only retiree in this position.
It does not sit well with your confidence when after you have been working for the government of Jamaica for upwards of 30 years to be told that some document is missing from your file. It is full time that those people who are entrusted with attending to these matters do their jobs properly.
BEVERLEY CARGILL