{"id":29379,"date":"2012-12-17T09:12:05","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T14:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=29379"},"modified":"2012-12-17T11:34:38","modified_gmt":"2012-12-17T16:34:38","slug":"martin-nib-bonuses-were-outrageous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2012\/12\/martin-nib-bonuses-were-outrageous","title":{"rendered":"Martin: NIB Bonuses Were ‘Outrageous’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Former National Insurance Board (NIB) member Nicole Martin said yesterday the bonuses that NIB\u00a0 executives received were \u201coutrageous\u201d, adding that she never would have approved such exorbitant amounts if the issue had come up during the meetings.<\/p>\n

Martin, a trade unionist, was one of 11 members of the NIB board appointed by former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are quite interesting,\u201d she said, referring to the amounts of money.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it has been asserted that we approved those, but based on my recollection [and after consulting] my minutes, there was nothing presented to the board to indicate any individual bonuses at that magnitude. So it\u2019s quite interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Had the bonuses been presented to the board, Martin said she would have objected to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a trade unionist and part of what we would have talked about from time to time is the negotiations for the line workers at NIB and the union,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m certain if that had come up I would have objected to it on the basis that bonuses need to be applied across the board and they need to be applied in a way that everyone is recognized for the outstanding contributions that they would have made throughout the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nassau Guardian reported earlier this week that eight NIB executives and one person on contract took home bonuses totaling $723,333 between January 2010 and May 2012.<\/p>\n

NIB Director Algernon Cargill took home $194,791.66 in bonuses during that period, according to information made public in recent days.<\/p>\n

According to the information, Cargill and other NIB executives received six bonus payments between January 8, 2010 and May 1, 2012.<\/p>\n

Martin acknowledged that it is not uncommon for executives to receive higher bonuses than line staff.<\/p>\n

However, she said \u201cthat kind of difference is unconscionable for me to even consider\u201d.<\/p>\n

Former NIB Chairman Patrick Ward told The Nassau Guardian last week that the bonuses paid to NIB executives were reasonable and had the necessary authorization before they were paid out.<\/p>\n

But Martin indicated that NIB\u2019s board only approved an overall budget. She said no individual contracts were provided.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly I don\u2019t have any information on any of that. And I referred to my minutes to reconfirm,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s statement came days after former board member John Pinder spoke out on the issue.<\/p>\n

Pinder said he was \u201cshocked\u201d by the amount paid out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell you that I, John Pinder, would have approved that amount of bonus being paid to any individual \u2014 no; not for a fund that was in some sort of jeopardy of being depleted in 20 years or so. I certainly wouldn\u2019t have had the conscience to agree to that amount being paid. I couldn\u2019t have done that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In addition to Ward, Martin and Pinder, other members of the board were Belinda Wilson, Robert Sands, Fr. Etienne Bowleg, Brian Nutt, Evan Dean, Van Diah, Debbie Ferguson and Dr. Robin Roberts.<\/p>\n

By Krystel Rolle <\/span><\/em>
\nGuardian Staff Reporter<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former National Insurance Board (NIB) member Nicole Martin said the executive bonuses were outrageous, and she would not have approved the exorbitant amounts had the issue come up at meetings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[3],"tags":[797],"class_list":["post-29379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-national-insurance-board"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29379","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\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}