DILI: Timor-Leste’s parliament on Wednesday (Sep 17) said it would scrap lifetime pensions for MPs, bowing to public pressure after dropping a plan to buy SUVs for lawmakers in one of southeast Asia’s poorest nations.
Student-led demonstrations against the multi-million dollar purchase drew thousands this week in the capital Dili, with demonstrators and police clashing two days in a row.
Protesters’ demands initially focused on cancelling the US$4.2 million plan to purchase SUVs for National Parliament members but later widened to include other issues, including lifetime pensions for former MPs.
Under a law passed in 2006, former MPs are entitled to pension equivalent to their salary.
Parliament said in a statement on Wednesday it would take steps to annul the law following a meeting with representatives of the demonstrators.
“If they don’t comply with the agreement, we will hold bigger protests,” Cristovao Mato, 27, one of the representatives, said.
Around 2,000 demonstrators gathered near the parliament building in Dili earlier in the day, according to an AFP journalist, with some expressing scepticism after parliament announced on Tuesday it had cancelled the plan to buy new cars for MPs.
“Rumours are that the cars are already on the way,” protester Trinito Gaio, 42, told AFP.
“So this is why all of these students and myself are here today – to make sure my tax money is not going in the … wrong direction.”
The controversy initially stemmed from a budget item, approved last year, to purchase Toyota Prado SUVs for each of the country’s 65 members of parliament.
The tender was due to be completed in September, according to an official parliament document.
The plan triggered widespread anger in a nation where more than 40 per cent of the population lives in poverty, according to the World Bank.
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