THE GOVERNMENT has announced that it intends to use $1 billion from the National Insurance fund to finance a small business development programme. While no one could quarrel with the need for such a programme, serious questions arise about the proposed method of finance. If not outright illegal, it is certainly at the very least a breach of the spirit of the NIS law and regulations.
This is not the first time that the PNP administration has resorted to such a questionable method of public finance. Former Prime Minister Patterson extracted $5 billion from the National Housing Trust for the so-called education transformation process. Already $1.4 billion has been spent from this amount with precious little transformation to show in return. Now, apparently, it is the turn of the NIS fund to be raided. After that source is exhausted, which fund shall the Government turn to next?
There is no justification for dipping into the monies of a fund established for an explicitly different purpose, whether this be the Housing Trust or the NIS funds. NIS benefits are already quite measly and any surplus cash which exists should properly be used to increase benefits to the long-suffering pensioners. These are persons who, over many decades, have faithfully served their country and met the statutory requirements to obtain benefits from the fund.
In many cases, these pensioners had no choice but to make their contributions since they were extracted from their wages and salaries at source. Now, in the transfer of funds to the proposed small business programme, many who have never made any contribution are to receive significant benefits from this self-same fund. Following the logic of such a policy, all persons who have not made adequate or any contributions to national insurance should now be legally entitled to claim some benefit.
This is the kind of entanglement the Government inevitably gets itself into when it resorts to this kind of financial juggling. Already Jamaica's enormous debt service charges will place a burden on future generations for decades to come. To further endanger the financial security of our grandchildren in order to secure short term electoral advantage is highly irresponsible to put it at its mildest. Government needs to rethink this approach. A different method of financing needs to be found.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
