\n
\n
Recently completing a 10-month review of 13 key recommendations to maintain proper funding of the billion-dollar national insurance programme, the commission presented an interim report of its findings to the government on August 3.<\/P><\/p>\n
Yesterday, commission members met with the media to publicly reveal the results of their study.<\/P><\/p>\n
Pointing out that personal savings by members of the public, private pension plans and the government-sponsored national insurance scheme are the three pillars of the country’s social security system, Commission Chairman Alfred Stewart said two of those components entail inherent limitations.<\/P><\/p>\n
“In The Bahamas personal savings is virtually non-existent – very few people set aside funds for retirement,” said Mr. Stewart.<\/P><\/p>\n
He added, “We do have a number of private pension plans, but unfortunately they only cover about 30 percent of the workforce.” <\/P><\/p>\n
The commission chairman pointed out that the national insurance scheme provides up to 60 percent of pre-retirement income for low to middle income workers, however, the Social Security Reform Commission is of the view that persons would require approximately 80 percent of their pre-retirement income in order to avoid a serious decline in their standard of living. \uffa0<\/P><\/p>\n
Additionally, the insurable wage ceiling is set at $1,753 per month, Mr. Stewart noted, which excludes income above that level from being factored into national insurance benefits payments. \uffa0\uffa0<\/P><\/p>\n
To help address some of these issues, the 15-member commission on Wednesday endorsed the 13 recommendations contained in the 7th NIB actuarial review. \uffa0\uffa0\uffa0<\/P><\/p>\n
One of those recommendations calls for a review of the insurable wage ceiling. <\/P><\/p>\n
“These adjustments should occur annually in line with wage and price indexes, as are commonplace in social security schemes in developed countries,” the actuarial review stated.<\/P><\/p>\n
The review also suggested that the national insurance fund gradually increase the contribution period required to qualify for a retirement pension from three to 10 years, consider paying more than just the greater of a retirement benefit and a survivors benefit where the widowed spouse has earned his\/her own pension, and ensure that the income test applied to non-contributory pensioners is strictly adhered to so that only those who are truly eligible receive assistance payments.<\/P><\/p>\n
Mr. Stewart noted some of the challenges in securing adequate funding for the national insurance programme, particularly with a stagnant contribution rate.<\/P><\/p>\n
“From the fund started in 1975 straight through to today there hasn’t been an increase in the contribution rate of 8.8 percent,” the chairman said.<\/P><\/p>\n
“The expenditure rate of the fund, however, from 1975 has been increasing, and in the early 1990s the expenditure rate actually exceeded the contribution rate at one point.”<\/P><\/p>\n
Since then the expenditure rate has fallen slightly below the contribution rate, but is now increasing once again, he said.<\/P><\/p>\n
The Social Security Reform Commission will hold a number of meetings between August and October to garner input from the public on how to proceed with revamping the system.<\/P><\/p>\n
Commission members will then take the month of November to compile their findings, before submitting a final report to the government in December.<\/P><\/p>\n
Darrin Culmer, The Bahama Journal<\/B><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In The Bahamas personal savings is virtually non-existent – very few people set aside funds for retirement,” says commission chairman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}