by Linda Straker
- Pension Reform bill passed on 18 December 2024
- Pension Fund legislation went into effect on 1 January 2025
- Groundwork towards legislation done by NNP administration
Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell has accredited the new Pension Fund legislation which went into effect on 1 January 2025 to the former New National Party (NNP) administration, claiming that all the groundwork was done by the time his administration was voted into office in June 2022.
“Let’s make no mistake, let’s not pretend, when we got into office, the Pension Reform Act that eventually came here and all the groundwork towards the same pension reform legislation that we passed here was already done by the New National Party administration,” he told Members of the Lower House of Parliament during his contribution to an amendment to the act during the 8 January session. “So don’t come here and try to deceive the people and lie, and pretend that this Pension Reform Act somehow miraculously happened after the election. You had already retained the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to do all of the reform work, to do the exact same thing that we’ve done.”
“Tell the nation the truth, tell the public servants that you were never going to pay them that EC$75 million retroactive pension and you will try and institute pension reform and not pay the retroactive pension,” said the Prime Minister as he informed the session that by the time he walked into the house, the IMF and Ministry of Finance had the work done.
This is the first time that he made such a disclosure publicly. During the passage of the pension reform bill on 18 December 2024, thanks were given to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Administration and her team, as well as Dr Curlan Gilchrist and a team for getting the work done. “I want to start off by commending PS Lindonna Hillaire-Marshall and her team in the Department of Public Administration for the enormous amount of work that they have done in getting us to this point today, I want this to go on record and I want Members of the House to recognise this. I also want to thank Dr Curlan Gilchrist who led the Pension Reform Committee and the members of the committee for the enormous work done on getting us to the point where we have a pension reform bill before us, and I want to thank Mr Derrick Osborne the consultant that was retained by the Pension Reform Committee,” he said.
