The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

THE government is consulting with a local firm on how best to formulate a proper pension regime for persons in the public sector, Prime Minister Perry Christie said yesterday.

Mr Christie told reporters outside the Cabinet Office that his administration is particularly concerned that certain former staff members of the Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas were owed pension money.

The announcement came just one day after State Finance Minister Micheal Halkitis told parliamentarians that ZNS does not have the ability to  fund its own pay roll or make its pension payments.

“We are going to be taking steps,” Mr Christie said, “to look at this whole regime of pensions in public corporations. We are consulting a local firm with respect to the manner in which we should go about approaching it so upon receipt of that kind of advice we will take the kind of actions that are necessary.

“We want to be able to put in place a regime that is in the best interest of all concerned.”

Tall Pines MP Leslie Miller has also urged fellow MPs to regulate pension funds so that BEC employees can be made to contribute to their own post retirement pay-outs.

Bahamian taxpayer dollars alone have for years made up the corporations $160 million pension fund.

The security of pension funds in the country, particularly in the private sector, has for a long time been a concern among successive governments.

More recently it has come to light that the millions of dollars tied up in the fund for City Market employees might not be able to satisfy the financial demands of the embattled former employees.

In 1999, the City Market pension fund was worth more than $21 million.

It is believed that up to the store’s closure back in April of last year, the fund should have been valued at more than $40 million given the more than 10 years since it was last reviewed.

Former employees of the failed chain demand to know why they can’t be paid these monies.