SUPERANNUATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21131, 14 March 1932, Page 12

SUPERANNUATION.

Sir,—l have read " Honour Bright's" letter, in which he says he cannot believe the Government would tear up the contracts re retired public servants' superannuation. It would appear that "Honour Bright" is not conversant with the position, otherwise he would know that the contract has already been torn up. According to the intention of the Superannuation Act, a public servant retired by the department should be entitled to receive one-sixtieth of his year's salary for each year of service. Recently many members of the Railways Department have been retired at between thirty and thirty-five years' service. Instead of receiving one-sixtieth of their salary for each year served, an actuarial expert has linen called in and apparently the actuary decides how long, the recipient is likely to live, and fixes the amount of his pension on that basis. A friend of mine was retired after thirty-two years' service. On the one-sixtieth per year basis ho would have retired on nearly £3 per week, but the expert decided he was only entitled to twenty-eight shillings. This man. is unemployed and not eligible to obtain relief work, and has a family to maintain. The Government may legally be entitled to adopt that method, but it was certainly not the intention and was not foreseen by the framers of the Act-. Contrast this treatment of the lower-paid men with that of the departmental heads. HI the second division of the Railways Department had their own superannuation fund I do not think there would be any necessity for any contribution from tho Consolidated Fund, as it is the payments being made to the highly-paid retired members which have put the fund in the position it is in to day. There can be no justification for these large sums being paid to officials who have been drawing a large and regular salary for about forty years, and sooner or later the position will have to he renewed by Parliament. Fair Play.