THE 2021 Report of the National Insurance Board (NIB) was laid in Parliament on time and not late as suggested by Opposition Senator Wade Mark.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert in a statement issued on Tuesday following Mark’s statements in the Senate, Imbert said that Mark was only attempting to score political points by making misleading statements.
Imbert said he has taken note of “misleading and false statements” made by Mark in the Senate where he claimed that the report was laid by Imbert two months after the expiry of the three-month statutory deadline for laying the report.
The minister said, “This kind of behaviour is typical of Senator Mark. Firstly, in complete ignorance or avoidance of the fact that the 2021 NIB Report was laid in Parliament by the Minister of Finance on February 11, 2022, three months ago, Senator Mark asked the Minister today to state when the report would be laid.
“When corrected and being reminded that the report was laid three months ago, he then proceeded to falsely allege that the laying of the report was late and demanded to know the reason why. When that didn’t work, he proceeded to ask when did the minister receive the 2021 report from the NIB, after falsely alleging that the minister had received the report in November 2021.”
Imbert said it was a matter of public record that the 2021 Report of the NIB was received by him on January 2022 and laid in the Parliament in February 2022, less than two months after it was received and long before the expiry of the three-month statutory deadline.
“These facts were published widely in the media, and in February 2022, there was significant public commentary on the contents of the 2021 Report of the NIB. It is therefore shameful that Senator Mark, as is often the case where he is concerned, would seek to mislead the public in this way and waste Parliamentary time, in a cheap and ill-advised, failed attempt to score political points,” he said.
