PENSIONS AND SUPERANNUATION.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 282, 14 November 1923, Page 7

PENSIONS AND SUPERANNUATION.

INADEQUATE ALLOWANCE TO WIDOWS.

RETIRING OFFICIAL’S CRITICISM

(Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, Nov. 13. Superannuation grievances and the inadequacy' of widows’ pensions wore referred to by Mr. H. A. Huggins, Controller of the Savings Bank and Accounts, at a presentation made io hirn yesterday by th© Post Office stall on the occasion of his retirement alter 40 years ’service. “There is one thing that keeps officers from retiring,” declard Mr. Euggins. “There are adequate pensions for men, but it is different for widows. The total amount is £lB per annum. Fancv a man ‘going out’ on a pension of £3OO or £4OO a year, while all his wife gets is £lB per annum, a totally inadequate sum. I have a scheme devised by myself that would obviate this, yet as every year comes along the Government says it has too much other business. When a scheme which will provide for widows is constantly put aside it seems to me that someone should take it up and s.ee that it is carried out. It is constantly being said that wo public servants are being handsomely pensioned by the Government. That is denied by one fact. The income of tlie superannuation fund is £480,000. of which the Government contribution is one-fifth of the pension fund. To say that the Government is handsomely pensioning civil servants is a gross perversion of the facts.”