WAR SERVICE GRATUITIES

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24869, 8 May 1946, Page 6

WAR SERVICE GRATUITIES

PAYMENT TO MEN ON PENSIONS COMPLAINT OF DELAY ANSWERED A complaint of delay in the pryment of war service gratuities to former servicemen receiving pensions has been answered by the Minister of Defence (the Hon. F. Jones), in a statement to “The Press.” Mr Jones was commenting on a correspondent’s letter, signed “Divvy Sigs.” in which it was claimed that “no serviceman in receipt pf a pension has received his gratuity.”

“Perhaps the Hon. F. Jones can explain why thesd men have not been paid what is coming to them,” the correspondent wrote. “He has stated that a serviceman having a disability would be entitled to so much gratuity. Base records cannot give any indication of when these gratuities will be paid; it is left to the discretion of the Minister of Defence. Why is he not doing his job? Many of these servicemen have had their applications in early, but are not yat receiving their money.” Mr Jones said, in reply, that many thousands of gratuity payments lUd already been deposited in post offices in cases where former servictihen were in receipt of war pensions and were entitled to the supplementary payment under the War service Oratulty R-egulations. “The actual timc>n handling these esses is longer thin for the ordinary applications, as it is necessary to refer them to the Secretary for War Pensions for indication of the rate of pension and the percentage of disability in order that toe amount of additional gratuity payment may be assessed.” . The Minister added that, because of the large number of war service gratuity applications to be dealt wan —altogether more than 200.0C0-and the smount of investigational worK entailed, it had not been P os f,!“ le fhp deposit all -gratuity payments by w - date of entitlement.” Although som delay was inevitable former men who had not already their gratuity post office bank dook could rest assured that n° „ being spared to deal with the bMance of applications on hand asexpeditio ly as possible.