GEORGE Panayiotou has worked for over 50 years as a plant chemical salesman. He has raised and married off three children, and took care and fed their grandchildren.
But since retirement, the only source of income for him and thousands of older people on the island is his pension, a measly £200 a month, which he uses to pay for his rent, his bills and food.
As we edge closer to EU accession on May 1, prices are soaring but pensions remain stagnant, and pensioners are finding it increasingly difficult to get by.
Speaking to the Sunday Mail this week, many said they were left penniless at the end of each month and had to depend on their children for extra support.
Panayiotou is a refugee; he lost his home in the invasion in 1974 and lives at the Ayios Mamas refugee estate. At 85, he depends on a Sri Lankan lady to look after him, but her salary is as much as his pension.
“I’ve lived my life, I helped my children, but I always said that the day I stop working that will be the end of me,” he said.
“I am now retired, I am expected to get by on £250 a month and pay for my food and the bills, and it’s so difficult for me to cook and to wash my clothes that I had to hire a woman to take care of me,” Panayiotou added.
“If it wasn’t for my children I don’t know how I would get by. Her salary is as much as my pension, but thank God the children help out so that’s OK.”
Panayiotou said money he had saved for his later years had all gone, some he gave to his children and the rest he spent on doctors and medication.
“Everything is getting more and more expensive,” he said.
“Those running this place should sit down and think, really think, ‘could I get by with £200 a month?’
“They should also think that there are a lot of people who lost their homes in the invasion, who can’t sell off their land, who don’t have anything but a refugee home and some belongings that they managed to throw in the back of the truck when they were running from the Turks.
“But what can you do? I don’t think things will change, I’ll get by, with God’s help I’ll get by.”
Like Panayiotou, Chrystalla, 75, has lived alone for more than 40 years. She has to pay £80 rent a month, around £70 on electricity, phone and gas bills. Her monthly pension comes to £150.
“It’s been so long I can’t really remember how long I have lived alone, I divorced my husband and, at the time, my son was in the third grade in high school,” she said.
“But I get by with my pension, it’s around £150 and £50 with the welfare, but I get left with nothing at the end of the month, and if it wasn’t for my son, who comes in every day to bring me food, I’d probably have been dead by now.”
Pavlos Theodorou once had a goldsmith’s business that supplied most of Cyprus with jewellery, but now he spends his days at a run-down shop, the scraps of his business not enough to sustain himself and his ailing wife.
“I get £205 a month,” he said.
“I can’t live on that, who can? Osteoporosis has left my wife unable to take care of herself and we’ve had to hire a Sri Lankan woman to take care of her. But her salary is very high for our standards and we have to depend on our children. I never wanted to depend on my children,” he added.
Panayiotis Pantelides said he was not too bothered by his low pension.
“Yes, it’s low and it’s difficult to get by on that kind of money, but let’s face it, the standard of living has improved, as far as I’m concerned,” he said.
“I am getting around £200 a month, my wife’s dead and I live alone. A lot of the times I get left without any money at the end of the month, with the rent and the electricity and food.
“It’s hard, but at the end of the day you have to grit your teeth and bear it,” he added.
“But to be honest, this is nothing like we lived through 50 years ago. I used to have to walk from my village up in Troodos to Amiandos, a distance of 10 miles every day barefoot, and I worked from dawn to dusk every day for peanuts.”
All the pensioners said they wanted the government to do something, anything to make their life easier in their old age.
“It’s not much to think about, but think about this: could you live on £200 a month?”
