A PENSION PLAN MUST COME

Last week, the Financial Secretary Simon Wilson, addressed what is the elephant in the room of the finances of the Government.  The fact that there is this burgeoning unfunded mandate called Government pensions that awaits a solution or it will surely bankrupt the government. Civil servants who retire get pensions and gratuities following good service at retirement but they make no contribution to the pension.  Just as the National Insurance rate increases were too long in coming, so the Fund is now in critical shape, and now we have this pension issue.  Long ago Alferd Stewart, the banker, chaired a Commission appointed by  Perry Christie’s Government.  That Commission reported that  NIB was in trouble and that the pension issue was a matter of concern for the government.  It recommended amongst other things, the NIB increase but said that the pension scheme of the Government should have been converted to a contributory pension. Nothing was done.  NIB was finally addressed last month. Let’s see what happens to pensions. If the Government had acted in 2002, then all new Government employees would have had to pay a contribution to their pensions and the government’s liabilities for the unfunded pensions would decline as people retired. But we did nothing and as of this time, we are still doing nothing except talk about it.