DOES THIS COMMUNITY CARE?
-
£800,000 GOLDEN HANDSHAKE AND WANTS COMMUNITY CARE!
-
£54,000.00 PENSION A YEAR AND STILL WANTS COMMUNITY CARE!
The whole world is still gripped by the worst effects of the COVID 19 pandemic. Things are so much better in Gibraltar than anywhere else. Instead of celebrating that positively, a number of people have turned to gut-wretching selfishness at a time when Gibraltar can least afford it. Gibraltar, like everywhere else, has been battered economically and the Chief Minister and the Minister for Financial Stability, Sir Joe Bossano, have said that the public finances will need to be rebuilt. And yet there is emerging a group of self-entitled men in their late 50’s who seem to believe that they should get free money even if they do not need it. This group of men is primarily made up of those who have retired on very, very generous occupational, non-contributory pensions from the public sector. These are the men who believe they should receive ‘Community Officer’ remuneration at the rate of £511 per month from the age of 60 from the independent charity, Community Care, whatever their income, without means testing because they are ‘entitled to it’.
The charity had created the Community Officer scheme to help those in hardship as a result of the absence of an equal pensionable age. The charity had a means test for qualification and a certain number of hours that had to be worked by a Community Officer. When they loosened it, no one complained and so many qualified that almost no one worked the previously required hours. Now they have tightened the criteria again the Charity and its Trustees are under attack.
The Government, for its part, has accepted that the pensionable age must be equalised – and the payment of that would, of course, not be means tested. Government have already committed to a Command Paper on the subject. There is no question that Government must act on that, but there is equally no question of Community Care having any obligation or liability to this group.
The New People has been given an insight into the deliberations of this group and their rantings. Today we expose what many of this group already receive, their lifestyles and the things they are foolishly saying, with no regard for the continuity of Community Care and the all important Household Cost Allowance.
The position that this group is taking – which is explicitly supported only by the GSD – is that they are entitled to receive the ‘Community Officer’ payments from the Charity, Community Care, even if they are very well off. Indeed, many of these individuals receive pensions and gratuity pay offs which are enormous by any standards. Yet they say that, because they have paid tax and social security, they are ‘ENTITLED’ to be paid £500 a month by a charity, whether they need it or not. This point is one of the most nonsensical put by this Group – given that the Charity has ALWAYS been completely funded EXCLUSIVELY by import duty, not tax or social insurance.
The New People has been given exclusive access to the ‘Whatsapp’ group which has been created by these people. It makes for pitiful reading. In this ‘ego-massaging’ group, where everyone praises each other, these men tell each other how wronged they are by the charity that refuses to give them money when they fail the means test of having an income below £21,000.00.
THE LEAD ANTAGONISTS
The group is administered by the ring leaders, or committee members of the group. These are now led by failed politician Joseph Capurro, who offered himself in the primary of one of the political parties that contested the last election, but was not even selected as a candidate for the election.
MISSING CONTRIBUTIONS?
Joseph Capurro, by his own admission and on the basis of his own profile on that party’s page, is unlikely to have been entitled to the state pension as he would appear not to have sufficient social insurance contributions. Mr Capurro tells those who read his profile that he left Gibraltar and spent most of his working life in the UK as a successful entrepreneur. It is therefore very likely that the person who has now taken the reigns of the motley group of men who say they are hard done by.
FAIR COP?
It’s likely that Capurro was selected to replace those on the committee who stepped down because it was obvious that they could not be poster boys for hardship. The former leader of the group was a former Police Officer. He will have retired as a police officer with a generous pension and gratuity that most workers in the private sector would consider generous. He is likely to have taken something over £75,000.00 in gratuity. If he invested his gratuity in Savings Bank Bonds, and we have no clue if he has, he will be getting a return of 5%, which is close to £4,000 a year, or over £300 a month guaranteed by the tax payer. He will be receiving an occupational pension of more than £20,000.00 per annum. When he is 65 he will also get a state pension and Household Cost Allowance from Community Care – totalling about another £750 per month.
Continued at link.
.