The National Insurance Board (NIB) is addressing operational challenges, but the problems are long-standing and will not be solved “overnight”.
That was the assertion of NIB chairman Dr Justin Robinson, as he responded to concerns raised in the 15th Actuarial Review of the National Insurance, Unemployment and Severance Funds.
The chairman said the NIB was working to remedy the “outstanding financial statements”, which he noted was “an unacceptable situation but a long-standing problem the board is addressing.
“When I joined the . . . board in 2008, the most recent financial statements laid in parliament were the 1999 financials. The outgoing board had recognised the problem and had hired KPMG to help clear a backlog with the bank reconciliations,” he explained.
“Due to slow progress in 2011, the board undertook a strategy of first trying to get the financials prepared and submitted to the Auditor General for auditing. The KPMG mandate was expanded and they were contracted to complete the statements up to 2009, freeing up the NIS staff to focus on the more current years.”
He added: “As a result of this strategy we have been able to prepare and submit financials up to 2014. In another attempt to speed up the clearing of the backlog, the Auditor General outsourced the auditing of the some of the statements to Ernst & Young, up to 2009, while his staff would focus on the more current years.”
Robinson said this work “has progressed much slower than anticipated for a number of reasons.
“A major reason is that the auditors were initially rendering a ‘No Opinion’ possible. The board felt that this was unacceptable for such a major institution and decided to spend the time needed to reconstruct the audit trails so that opinions could be rendered,” he explained.
“The public concerns are justified, but it is disingenuous to suggest that the issue is not being dealt with or that there is an overnight fix to an issue that built up over several decades.”
In terms of investments, Robinson reiterated that “the reality for the board and management of the [National Insurance Fund] is that there are limited investment opportunities outside of Government securities”.
Robinson also stressed that NIB was apolitical, with its directorship made up of Government, private sector and trade union representatives.
“The Barbados private sector is represented on the NIS board by Mr Ian Gooding-Edghill and Mr Colin Jordan, the unions are represented by Ms Toni Moore and Ms Roslyn Smith, while myself, Mr Wismar Greaves and Mr Martin Da Silva are appointed by the Government. This is hardly a political board,” he said. (SC)