Alberto Bute, Claire Elshot and Raymond Jessurun.
PHILIPSBURG--Minister of Health, Labour and Social Affairs VSA Pamela Gordon-Carty met with St. Maarten Anti-Poverty Platform and St. Maarten Consumers Coalition representatives Claire Elshot, Alberto Bute and Raymond Jessurun on December 24, to discuss the new AOV and AWW indexation.
The coalition said in a press release on Friday it expressed concerns on unlawful arguments used by Director of Social and Health Insurances SZV Glen Carty in an advertisement for the “2020 AOV/AWW amounts” published in The Daily Herald on Monday. “After contacting the Director of SZV he informed us that the Minister of VSA, in a letter [dated - Ed.] December 13, had instructed him to publish this announcement. When the Minister of VSA was contacted to address our concerns about the indexation publication, the Minister called for the urgent meeting,” coalition representatives said.
“We informed the Minister of VSA that the AOV law states in Article 7, sub 3; “Adjustment of the pension amount shall occur as of the first day of any calendar year based on the increase shown in the family consumption price index figure for the preceding month of August as compared to the price index figure for the month of August in the preceding year”. The statement in the advertisement said the Minister of VSA has the obligation to index the AOV and AWW pay-outs with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of August of the previous year. This is incomplete and therefore incorrect,” the release said.
The coalition said the question was posed to the Minister on who made the decision to use the CPI of the third quarter of 2019 (0.09 per cent) for the indexation of the AOV and AWW amounts. “The Minister informed that this was the advice based on the Department of Statistics St. Maarten’s (STAT) CPI published. We told the Minister we could not accept the statement in the advertisement,” the coalition said. “It is noted that the August’s CPI is no longer available as the Department of Statistics had implemented a new methodology and will only be publishing quarterly CPI’s.”
The coalition said the Minister was informed in January of the coalition’s objection against the unlawful zero-per-cent indexation announced by SZV. The objection was present in a letter of instruction from the former Minister of VSA, Emil Lee.
“Minister Lee decided to revisit this decision by forming an AOV and AWW taskforce in January which determined an indexation of 2.71 per cent based on the CPI estimate over the period August 2017 to August 2018,” the release said.
The coalition further questions why STAT could not provide an estimate for the period August 2018 to August 2019.
Based on the coalition’s estimate, the increase in the cost of living from August 2018 to August 2019 does not amount to 0.09 per cent. “The CPI in June 2018 (end of the second quarter) was 99.69 per cent. The CPI of September 2019 (end of the third quarter) is 100.59 per cent. The increase in cost of living over a 15-month period is plus 0.96 per cent,” the coalition said. “The CPI of June, the second quarter of 2019 is 100.24, which makes the increase over the 12 months period plus 0.61 per cent.”
The coalition questions the 0.09 estimated per cent increase of the cost of living August 2018 and August 2019. “One would have expected in this 12-month period a cost of living increase between 0.61 per cent and 0.96 per cent, and not outside of this range of only a 0.09-per-cent increase,” the coalition said.
The coalition also asked the Minister if the minimum wage will be indexed as per January 2020, and was told by Minister Gordon-Carty she has requested advice on the matter and will inform the public shortly about her decision to index the minimum wages.
“The Minister was aware that since 2016, the minimum wages have not been indexed to maintain the purchasing power of the minimum wage,” the coalition concludes.
