NIS Denies It Made Loan For Prison Construction

The National Insurance Scheme wishes to inform the public of the following:­

(i)         The NIS has neither made nor has the NIS Board approved any loan for the construction of the prisons.

(ii)        The current liquidity position of the NIS is sound with total investment of $554 million, $219 million of which are in fixed deposits with the commercial banks. 

(iii)       As in several previous communiques, the NIS wishes to reiterate the following:

The sixth Actuarial Review conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) on the NIS as at 30th June 1996 concluded that should the current benefit structure be maintained that inter alia

(a) the NIS will start incurring annual deficits by 2025.  

(b) thereafter, the NIS will have to sell its reserve assets in order to meet its benefit obligations.

To pre-empt this and keep the NIS viable, the Actuary recommended, among other measures:

(a)       increasing the pension age from 60 to 65 over a 15 year period (i.e. 1 year added to the retirement age every 3 calendar years).

(b) increasing from 10 years to 15 years, the number of years of contribution for entitlement to a pension, this to be implemented over a 15 year period.

The increase in the retirement age has yet to be implemented.

Director (Ag.)

[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Search for 2001 Press Releases ] [Site Help]

© 2001 Government Information Service. All rights reserved.

Read our privacy guidelines.