The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The House of Assembly will today begin debate on the proposed Employees Pension Fund Protection Bill, the Minister of State for Finance said yesterday.

Suggesting the Bill could pass its Second Reading as well, Michael Halkitis said: “It’s been a long time in the works. We laid it in the house on the 25th of July.

“Even before it was laid there was an extensive consultation, and when we laid it in July we didn’t debate it immediately because that gave other persons the opportunity to make

additional input as to changes they would like to see.

“We have not gotten anything major, so we are going to go ahead and hopefully we can pass it tomorrow. The objective of it is to protect the pension fund assets of private [schemes], requiring companies to hire an administrator to manage the funds, so we think it’s a good step forward,” said Mr Halkitis.

Bahamas Chamber of Commerce & Employers Confederation chief executive, Winston Rolle, recently expressed concern that the prospects for improving the Bahamas’ 21 per cent workforce pension coverage were not very high because the proposed Bill does not make  participation necessary.

He added that the failure to mandate that all Bahamian workers be covered, and participate in, pension plans would defeat the purpose of the Government’s plans.

Government data seen by Tribune Business suggests that of the 191,000 persons in the Bahamian workforce, just 40,000 - about 21 per cent - are covered by a pension plan, with most of these workers likely to be in the Government corporations, such as BEC and BTC, plus the hotel sector.

The Employees Pension Fund Protection Bill draws upon much of the work performed by a Pensions Task Force appointed by the Ingraham administration.