News

A “business person in Fox Hill” suggested in a letter to the Editor (What’s Going on at NIB? – Tribune 23/09), that with the recent move of Inspectors from the National Insurance Board’s Fox Hill Local Office to its Jumbey Village Local Office in the Clifford Darling Complex, the Board’s operations in Fox Hill will close down. According to Greg Collie, Senior Manager for Compliance with responsibility for the Inspectorate, nothing could be further from the truth. He said the Fox Hill Local Office is not closing down.

Derek Osborne, Consultant Actuary at the National Insurance Board is advising the public that though the 8th Actuarial Review of the National Insurance Fund, which includes long-term projections of the Fund and recommendations aimed at enhancing the Fund’s long-term sustainability as well as its ongoing relevance, has been completed, it has not yet been tabled in Parliament as is required by law.

Algernon Cargill, Director of the National Insurance Board (NIB) is responding to a Tribune article (March 12, 2009) that suggested that members of the business community are in a state of “enormous consternation” over the Board’s current and ongoing process of updating its contribution records. Though NIB has addressed this issue in the recent past, the NIB Director wishes to say once again that the Board is obligated by the National Insurance Act to ensure that all employers have paid the amount of contributions due for each employee for each month, and that contributions submitted are accurately posted or deposited to the accounts of the appropriate employees.

As was reported in the local media recently, the National Insurance Board (NIB) is increasing its review of the contribution accounts of delinquent employers and self-employed persons in order to ensure compliance with the National Insurance Act (the Act).

As of March 2, 2009, all claims submitted for short-term benefits by employed persons (i.e., persons who have bosses) must be accompanied by an Employers Certification form (Med 4). The new Med 4 form is a single- sheet addition to the Med 1, Med 1A and Med 2 forms. It requires the employer to certify that an employee is/was/will be off from work for the period stated.

The National Insurance Board’s (NIB) primary objective, as mandated in the National Insurance Act, continues to be providing income-replacement for workers when they are unable to work. To deliver on this income-replacement promise to workers of The Bahamas, NIB collects contributions from self-employed persons and from employers on behalf of employees.