You Have Two Guesses As To What The Government Does With Your Pension Contributions…
Option #1 – Protects Your Future
When the government receives your pension contributions, the money is placed in a special pension investment fund that is professionally managed and kept apart from anything else. The funds are never to be used for anything but future pensions, and are never invested in government schemes or projects that are typically overbudget and unprofitable. A good proportion of the funds are invested offshore in stable currencies and markets to protect Bajans from any devaluation of our dollar.
In this way the Barbados Government is securing the future for individual Bajans in their old age.
Option #2 – Deceit, Theft & Mismanagement
When the government receives your pension contributions, the money is placed in the general accounts and spent just like any tax revenues. No separate investments are really made and your pension contributions see no growth at all. Instead, you are given a “promise” that you will one day get a pension of some unknown size and duration.
Because there was never any real separate pension investment fund and never any growth of the pension contributions that the government has been ripping from your paycheque, there won’t be enough money in the future for everyone to have a pension. The “plan” is that future tax revenues will be used to pay you a pension in your old age, but any fool knows there won’t be enough tax revenues to pay the pensions.
Even raising the pensionable age only delays the inevitable.
My Fellow Bajans – What Is Your Guess About What The Government Did With Your Pension Contributions?
The pension contribution monies that have been taken from Bajans for the last 13 years simply don’t exist. The money was spent like any other tax revenues.
The government has “loaned” your money to such government “investments” as Cricket World Cup, new autos for judges, building the new jail and sending Senator Fields to New York City for “conferences”. There has been no growth and everything that you have “invested” has been spent.
In the real world folks who pull that kind of deceitful “scheme” go to jail.
When government does it though – it’s called “management”.
What’s That, You Say? The Government National Insurance Scheme Invests The Money… They Produce Reports!
Well, the last National Insurance Scheme report that is available online is for 2002 and it has wonderful charts with circles and arrows in many colours! And the most telling words in the report are the following…
“… the majority of the Fund’s investments remain in Government Debentures and other fixed income securities”
Read the report children and if you dare, ask where the reports are for 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. The government of Barbados has “invested” the vast majority of your pension contributions by loaning out the money… to itself!
