Leader of the Progressive Empowerment Party (PEP) Phillip Alexander, is calling for a complete audit of the National Insurance Board (NIB) and the National Insurance Property Development Company Limited) (NIPDEC).
In a statement on Saturday, in light of suggestions by the NIB to move the pensionable age in Trinidad and Tobago from 60 to 65, Alexander said taxpayers have to once again pay for the mismanagement of State enterprises.
Alexander said that adding five more years to the qualifying age for pension was the equivalent of charging every elder in society $210,000 each for the mismanagement of NIB funds.
He said an audit should be done using foreign investigators before any decisions to delay pensions could be contemplated.
“Instead of enquiries, investigations and prosecutions, the Government hands the bill for decades of corruption to the taxpayers that have foot the bill all their lives,” he added.
“Police moved in on DSS (Drugs Sou Sou) for a Ponzi scheme, but this is worse. Those people knew what they were getting into. This is a betrayal of trust. This is worse than a gun in granny’s face. This is not about rescuing the fund as it is about covering up a decades-long crime scene.”
Alexander added, “And it should be rejected at every level by every worker who now has to pay five more years of contributions to get less money at the end of it all.”
The only rescue should be similar to that of the bailout of CLICO, the PEP leader said.
The increase in the retirement age is one of the solutions being suggested by the NIB in order to increase insurance contributors, according to NIB executive director Naila Persad-Poliah.
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