Yesterday Prime Minister Dean Barrow went to BTL to meet with their union and today he did the same at BWSL and BEL. With all the public uproar over Citizen Kim and Elvin Penner, you might think he's trying to put out political fires, but in fact, he's trying to get the unions not to bail on their pension funds. Those utility unions have robust pension funds and they got a scare this week when word went out that two proposed pieces of legislation, the draft Belize Pensions Regulation Bill and the draft Belize Pensions Act would give government the authority to raid those pension funds. And then word went out that these pieces of legislation might be pushed through the house in two weeks' time! That sent everyone reeling - and that's why the PM had to spring into action to say, "Not So". The bills being passed around are only model bills produced by a Canadian consultant; they haven't gone to the Sol Gen, or to Cabinet. And while they provide for the regulation of pension funds, more importantly, they don't seek to regulate existing funds. The PM told us what he told the unions:..
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"I do believe that there is a misunderstanding of the provisions of the draft bill. But it doesn't matter. If it ain't broke, don't fix it; these pre-existing pension schemes run internally here at BWS, BEL and at BTL don't need to be touched as far as I concerned. If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
"We will absolutely exempt all pre-existing private pension schemes except there are any entities running such that see the bill and say no. We want what we think are additional layers of protection that the bill contains."
Jules Vasquez
"Do you have to go to the store to put out fliers, so to speak, really needlessly because things are perhaps at a delicate stage."
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"I received a call yesterday that with respect to BTL, the misunderstanding, the confusion had risen to such heights that it had triggered a panic and that almost 70% of the participants of the scheme were saying 'we are not waiting for government to pass any legislation, we want withdraw now.' In that kind of context which basically would have caused the scheme to collapse when there was no need."
"I felt that simply sending a note saying that government will exempt your scheme would not be enough. But I really thought that I better get over there and explain this thing to people to reassure them so that there can be no question of withdrawal from a scheme. They can continue to operate in exactly the same way as they have been doing."
The draft legislation proposes to install a supervisor of pensions who would monitor the operators of the pension scheme to see if they are behaving fraudulently or in a manner that could deprive the contributors of their benefits.
A statement issued by the government this evening says, quote, "The Bill does not require that any pension funds or pension investments be under the control of the Government nor does it require that pension funds be invested in any Government securities, nor does the Bill propose to change or modify any existing private pension funds.
Furthermore, the Bill also does not in any way affect the Government Pension nor the Belize Social Security Board Pensions." End quote.
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