The Parliamentary Retirement Allowance Act should be reviewed, the independent consultant to the Special Emoluments Committee, Kevin Deveaux has recommended.
He said the current Act created an allowance to be provided to former MPs.
“The funds for the allowances are taken from the Government of Fiji Consolidated Fund,” he said.
“To be clear, former MPs in Fiji do not receive a “pension” per se, as a pension normally is a specific and separate fund to which employers and employees contribute funds from which former employees receive a set income. In comparison, in Fiji, MPs do not provide contributions from their salary to fund the allowance they receive upon ending their work as an MP.
“MPs in Fiji do contribute, as do all employees in the country, to the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF).
“Therefore, former MPs are entitled to receive both benefits/income from the FNPF as well as the retirement allowance under the Act.
“Therefore, the current committee has requested the assistance of an independent consultant to conduct an analysis of the current retirement allowance system for all of the offices noted above and to report to the committee with specific findings and recommendations to revise, if necessary, the current system.”
