PETALING JAYA: A group of former senior military officers is seeking to rectify a pension anomaly that puts veterans who retired before 2013 at a disadvantage.
Higher pensions are given to those who retired after changes were made to the Pensions Act in 2013.
Led by former armed forces chief of staff Nawi Alias, the group is made up of 12 retired air force, army and navy officers. They have met to discuss their next course of action.
Nawi, a former lieutenant-general in the air force, said it was wrong in the first place to let the public service department decide on the pensions of former military personnel since “all wages and allowances are controlled by the Armed Forces Council (AFC)”, which is the highest decision-making authority for the defence forces.
“The anomaly is serious. For example, a warrant officer 1 who retired before 2013 is getting a pension of about RM2,000 while those who left after that are receiving RM4,000.
“It’s the same with all other ranks, commissioned or non-commissioned officers,” he told FMT.
Nawi, who was a member of the AFC before he retired, said the group was being helped by legal advisers and its push would benefit about 200,000 retirees.
“We have decided to seek a meeting with the defence minister, the defence forces chief and the secretary-general of the ministry,” he said.
“If the ministry and the AFC do not act, we are looking at legal means to get what is rightfully ours.”
The group’s action comes after some retired judges and their dependents filed a suit seeking adjustments to their pension payments, saying these should be based on the current salaries of serving judges.
The plaintiffs – 28 former judges who served in the Federal Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Malaya and the High Court of Sabah and Sarawak and seven dependents of deceased judges – are seeking several declarations from the High Court.
On Jan 13, the Court of Appeal declared that an amendment to the Pensions Adjustment (Amendment) Act, which came into effect in January 2013, was unconstitutional.
Judge Darryl Goon, who delivered the judgment, said the amendment violated Article 147 of the Federal Constitution as any new pension scheme could not be less favourable than the earlier scheme.
Under the old scheme, the pensions of government retirees were revised by reference to the prevailing salaries of civil servants.
However, under the scheme introduced in 2013, pensioners get annual increments at a flat rate of 2%. - FMT
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.