Ex-servicemen accept govt offer

National, Normal
Source:

By THOMAS HUKAHU

A GROUP representing 1,360 retrenched soldiers has thanked the acting Treasurer and Finance Minister Peter O’Neill for making the commitment to pay their outstanding entitlements.
This particular group is happy with the government’s actions.
Group spokesman Godfrey Aisi on Monday said: “We, this group of retrenched soldiers, are unlike the other groups. All we want is for the government to pay us the two components that they did not pay according to National Executive Council decision 213/2001.”
The payment of the ex-servicemen’s entitlements was supposed to have occurred last Thursday but leaders of different groups of ex-soldiers stopped the payouts because they want the government to pay them the promised K187 million and not any amount less than that. 
Aisi’s group, however, distanced themselves from those who are stopping the payments.
They also showed copies of documents showing details of what was promised to them and what is still owed to them.
From 2001 to 2007, as part of the down-sizing exercise in the defence force, many soldiers were retrenched.
Under the retrenchment exercise, the soldiers who were pushed out were supposed to have been paid a number of different components.
A number of ex-soldiers have since passed away and their families have come under a lot of stress and hardship while waiting for the entitlements to be paid.
 “We are very grateful for Minister O’Neill for heeding to our cries to finally pay up our entitlements. And we are also comfortable with the cheque payments to be made out to individuals,” Taiya Pipi, another retrenched soldier said.