Stewart Haynes, Director of National Insurance Services, says St. Vincent may soon implement measures to deter people from claiming their pension before reaching the pensionable age.
Haynes said on state radio last week while discussing sections of the NIS 11th Actuarial Report that the social security agency is considering increasing the pensionable age reduction from 6% to 9%.
“Currently, if someone receives their pension early, we deduct 6% for each year they are under the pensionable age. As an example, if your pensionable age is 65 and you accept it at 64, we will cut it by 6%. We are considering increasing it from 6% to 9%, resulting in a 9% cut each year.”
Haynes stated that Montserrat completed its reform in 2021 and completely scrapped the early-age pension.
“Another bucket you can use is to improve the fund’s governance, so they encourage us to continue engaging in public consultation.” We can also boost governance by adopting a financing policy and a benefit policy, which we have done along with revising our risk policy, which is one of the approaches to improve the fund’s governance.
Haynes additionally stated that administrative overhead in St. Vincent are excessive in comparison to contribution receipts.
“Though it has trended downward in recent years, we are looking into the use of technology to reduce administrative costs and address the issue of low coverage for the self-employed and informal sector.” Another suggestion concerns donation compliance, which we need to improve or increase.”
Haynes stated that the NIS anticipates the SVG population will fall in the long run. According to him, this indicates that the ratio of older people to younger people will increase, thus ensuring NIS sustainability is important.
