By Sue-Ann Wayow
OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is calling on Government to state whether the pension age will be pushed to 70 years and to tell the country what are its concrete plans for preserving the National Insurance Board (NIB) funds.
She made the call at the United National Congress (UNC) virtual political meeting on Monday.
Persad-Bissessar who continued to lament about the Government’s missteps said the rumour of the pension age being raised from 60 to 65 might be true given government’s failure to manage the fund effectively.
She said Finance Minister Colm Imbert was forced to read the National Insurance Board (NIB) report in Parliament which revealed troubling statistics that have since been denied by Imbert.
Persad-Bissessar said, “Government must be upfront and honest with people and they must tell us what are their plans to manage the NIB fund efficiently and competently. I am calling on Government to tell us whether the hundreds of thousands of persons, pensioners are in jeopardy after the documents placed in the NIB reports.
“Tell us if you are even going further, instead of pushing to 65 retirement age, you may want to go to 70 because you seem to have no other plan. How to increase it to take care of our aged pensioners.”
She added that reports showed that over 100,000 have lost jobs under the present administration that does not include those who were not registered with the NIB such as those self-employed.
“These reports clearly highlight that under the Rowley regime, as at June 2020, 113,000 people have lost their jobs since 2015. This is a significant decrease in the number of contributors to the fund,” Persad-Bissessar said.
