S&P: NIS aid a worry

Standard & Poor’s is sounding a warning bell about the long-term financial health of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) in Barbados.
Specifically, the Wall Street credit rating firm, whose team of financial analysts met earlier this month in Bridgetown with the country’s key officials, said Barbados must prepare for the day when the NIS surpluses being used to help finance the Government deficit could eventually evaporate, leaving the scheme to meet its obligations to a rising number of pensioners in 10-16 years.
Richard Francis, S&P’s lead analyst for Barbados, said the NIS already held a large amount of Government debt, and with an ageing population the scheme’s obligations to pensioners would escalate in the years ahead, and increase the financial pressure on the scheme.
“The debt, obviously, is continuing to rise with the large deficits we saw in the last fiscal year and going into this year. That’s bad, you know. Barbados still has the advantage that a good proportion of its debt is held by the National Insurance Scheme,” Francis told the SUNDAY SUN. (TB)