ANTHONY THORNE
Chartered Accountant
(3)
I find it difficult to believe that any government concerned for the welfare of pensioners for whom it has accepted a statutory responsibility to maintain the purchasing power of their overseas pensions can remain so insensitive for so long to the problems such pensioners have been facing, especially when it must by now be aware what those problems are.
I find it even more difficult to understand that the combined resources of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Overseas Development Administration and the Hong Kong Government cannot devise some better arrangements for maintaining the purchasing power of overseas pensions than the present, universally discredited, SPOS scheme.
While it is not for me to comment on Hong Kong's exchange rate policy, I personally feel that the problems I have described stem from linking the parity of the Hong Kong dollar to the US dollar instead of to sterling. The effect of such a fundamental change on pensions paid in Hong Kong dollars should have been recognised much sooner, and measures to alleviate the adverse consequences which have resulted, introduced much earlier.
I urged you to act quickly in this matter because the situation I have described seems unlikely to be reversed. The value of the Hong Kong dollar has fallen by almost 20% in the last year, which has seen my current pension fall from £1133 for the month of April 1990 to £950 for January this year.
Yours sincerely
ацион
Authorised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales to carry on investment business