I decided recently to research some of the pertinent
legislation of St Lucia, as part of my “coming to know” exercise. I wanted to
write about laws that affect the daily lives of the St Lucian Public. In this
article I will be reviewing some sections of the National Insurance Corporation
Act. It is amazing the things you learn when you do a little bit of reading. Some
of you may already be familiar with this information, however for the benefit
of us who may still be ignorant of a few things I will share my opinion on
section 56- Survivors pension and Grant of The NIC Act.
Section 56 (1) A person who has been widowed is entitled to a survivor’s
pension at the prescribed rate if—
(a) the late
spouse satisfied the prescribed contribution conditions for a survivor’s
pension; or was at the time of his or her death, in receipt of a pension under
this Act;
(b) he or she was married to his or her late spouse
for at least 3 years prior to his of her death;
(c) he or she was, at the time of the spouse’s death
over the age of 55; or
(d) he or she was under the age of 55 and had the
care of his or her children (with his or her late spouse) under the age of 16
or 18 if the children are in receipt of a full-time education.
So the important things that married
couples of individuals who are contributors must take note of is that if you
are married less than 3 years to a
contributor you will not be entitled
to survivors benefit. If you are not above 55 at the time of his/her death you
are not entitled to receive any benefits. Now
how unfair is that!!! Shouldn’t you receive such benefits any time your
spouse dies? Let’s dissect this a little more. NIC is sitting on a massive
fortune. If you were to investigate the net worth of the NIC and the profits it
generates you would be surprised. According to the 2009 annual report (wish they
provided a more updated report on their website) the total assets owned is in
the tune of $1.35 BILLION dollars.
They also have holdings in subsidiary companies namely; NIPRO, Castries Car
Park, Blue Coral, St Lucia Mortgage Finance Company. In 2009 The NIC received over
$87 million in annual income/contributions of which only a little over 46
million was paid out in short and Long term benefits. According to their annual
report of 2009, NIC was profiting over 25 million dollars. After adding their "other income" to the mix they were operating at a profit of 94 million dollars.
How much of that money is the hard working St Lucian Public getting in return?
The Castries Car Park is 100% owned
by NIC. In 2009, they recorded an average occupancy of 55%. In other words on
average only a little over half of the car park was full on any given day. Now
I’m sure the NIC would have love a greater rate of occupancy, but it begs the
question. Why aren’t more people using the carpark? If I was a conspiracy
theorist I would make this absurd proposition for consideration. Are you aware
that in “public opinion” Conway was considered one of the most dangerous
communities at one point? Are you also aware, that NIC purchased millions of
dollars in government bonds? And that NIC’s partnership is highly beneficial to
both the GOSL and NIC? Back to my conspiracy theory. If Conway was considered
dangerous by the public, and the public consequently were not utilizing the
facility. Could it have been NIC who lobbied for the government to displace the
Conway residents? Hmmmmmm???? Again I’m not a conspiracy theorist so I won’t
make that “silly” assumption. Is this really beneficial to you? I guess you’ll
decide. There are more observations I made while analyzing the benefit of NIC,
but I don’t want to make the article exorbitantly lengthy, so look out for the
next article which I will be posting in a few days.
Here’s to happy reading!!!!
