Humphrey issues caution over BARP lowering age limit

Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs Kirk Humphrey has cautioned the Barbados Association of Retired Persons (BARP) not to lose focus of their core purpose, as it seeks to attract more members by reducing the age for joining by 10 years.

Last December, BARP, through which members can access a range of discounts and a group healthcare plan, announced a reduction in the minimum joining age from 50 to 40. President Marilyn Rice-Bowen at the time had said that among the factors influencing the change were a desire to help younger people get better acquainted with planning for retirement and the recognition that there were quite a few young professionals, who are self-employed but have no health insurance.

However, speaking in Parliament on Monday, during debate on a resolution to grant $2 226 311 from the Consolidated Fund to supplement the 2021/2022 Estimates, including $1 452 000 for design work for the new Geriatric Hospital, Humphrey said self-help organisations like BARP must serve the elderly, from all strata of society.

“I support BARP . . . . My caution is that in dropping the age to 40 I hope that we do not lose focus on the core reason . . . BARP existed in the first place, which was to help those who are elderly and above a certain age,” he said.

“BARP must serve all. BARP must serve middle-class Barbadians and it must serve lower-class middle Barbadians; it must serve middle-class old people and it must serve lower-class Barbadians. It has to be that people who live in Brittons Hill and in the Bayland feel as strongly about a self-help organisation for the old as people who live in other areas.”

Humphrey said he hoped to have a conversation very soon about how he could help BARP or any other self-help organisation better assist the elderly in Barbados.

The Elder Affairs Minister also raised concern that some employers were forcing workers to retire when they reach the age of 64 although the pensionable age in Barbados is 67.

“There is a two-year gap where people who are legitimately entitled either to work or to a pension or some form of  financing are unable to do so. We have to be very careful, we have to let them know it is wrong, wrong, wrong because people at that age should not be taken advantage of,” he said.

“That two-year gap needs to be looked at because . . . they find themselves at Welfare, having worked and earned and served in this country. . . . There is a gap and nature abhors a vacuum and so do I, as it relates to how elderly people are treated in this country.” (DP)