PAULA GORDON, Staff Reporter

It was pure chaos at the Accountant General's Department yesterday as scores of government pensioners lined up in an effort to get answers as to why their pensions for the month of June was not paid to them.

When THE STAR visited the King Street establishment, about 40 to 50 pensioners were seen lined up waiting to get some answers from the department.

A former inspector of police who was among the crowd said, "We have had this problem since last week. This is my fourth day attending here and every day I'm told to come back."

THE STAR has learnt that since last Tuesday, hundreds of pensioners have been visiting the department to collect what has been owed to them.

"It looks a bit better today it's about 40 people here. Last week hundreds of people were out here," the former inspector said.

Information received is that persons have been travelling from as far as Manchester.

When THE STAR tried to ascertain what was holding up the payouts, one woman explained, "We were told last week that no life certificates have been sent in for us and yesterday (Monday) we were told that the certificates were lost."

When contacted yesterday, a representative from the Ministry of Finance told us that if the life certificates go in late then the payments would be late.

As it relates to the certificates being lost, the representative said she had no knowledge of that.