The Tribune

Apostle 1 year, 5 months ago

I accept all of that which the minister said about the administrative costs in the family islands, but that is a red herring as far as I am concerned. We pay enough for NIB contribution.

The primary mission was and is to provide income-replacement in respect of sickness, invalidity, maternity, retirement, death, industrial injury/disease, and involuntary loss of income.

The National Prescription Drug Plan was launched in September 2010 to make available prescription drugs used in the treatment of 11 chronic diseases gratis.

The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is an agency of the government of The Bahamas, established under the National Health Insurance Act. In 2017, to deliver accessible, affordable, and quality healthcare for the benefit of all Bahamians. Ok.

The NIB Act provides for investments in our money. Anybody who invests expect a return. Many Bahamians do not know how this fund is used and what these investments are. The government lends money from the fund to itself for projects. These are not investments per se.

The government needs to stop using the NIB fund as a slush fund to do whatever it wants. They use the money to build clinics, to build police headquarters in Freeport, used to fund the building the ministry of Education building on University Drive, used to fund the building of the Ministry of Education and Public Service and Health on Meeting Street, used to fund increases in salary of civil servants, and a myriad of other things that they make loans for and waste the money because they never get paid back for these loans. So when they raise the contribution again they will build more clinics and whatever then in five or ten years return and cry that the fund is low.

I don’t believe an increase in contributions is necessary. The government needs to pay back all the money it borrowed and seek repayment from the monies loaned for building the infrastructure of The Bahamas. Unfortunately they just pipe out to us that we need to pay more and by and large we accept. The government is not being fully transparent as they know they can just increase and impose tax on the people as we sit quietly and let them do it.

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