The Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NIB) has con­firmed that the term of the board of di­rec­tors of the in­sti­tu­tion ex­pired last month.

Asked on Wednes­day whether the NIB has a prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed board at this time, an spokesper­son for the in­sti­tu­tion said: “The term of the board ex­pired on No­vem­ber 9, 2023.”

T&T’s Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Act stip­u­lates that the board of the NIB shall con­sist of 11 di­rec­tors “who shall be ap­point­ed by the Min­is­ter” of Fi­nance.

The 11 di­rec­tors ap­point­ed by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance com­prise:

• Three mem­bers ap­point­ed by the gov­ern­ment;

• Three mem­bers nom­i­nat­ed by the as­so­ci­a­tions most rep­re­sen­ta­tive of busi­ness;

• Three mem­bers nom­i­nat­ed by the as­so­ci­a­tions most rep­re­sen­ta­tive of labour;

• A per­son, who in the opin­ion of the Min­is­ter, is in­de­pen­dent of the gov­ern­ment, busi­ness and labour, who shall be the chair­man;

• The Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor as ex of­fi­cio mem­ber.

The Act man­dates that ap­point­ments to the of­fice of NIB di­rec­tor shall not be more than two years but they may be reap­point­ed.

In Sep­tem­ber, the Court of Ap­peal dis­missed a chal­lenge to the ap­point­ment of Patrick Fer­reira as the chair­man of the NIB. The chal­lenge was brought by Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj.

Fer­reira was ap­point­ed to a two-year term as chair­man of the NIB board ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 20, 2022. His term of ap­point­ment as chair­man was due to ex­pire on Jan­u­ary 19, 2024.

The NIB, which con­trolled as­sets of about $30 bil­lion at the end of its 2022 fi­nan­cial year, man­ages the pay­ment of the min­i­mum $3,000 pen­sion to re­tired work­ers and more than 20 oth­er ben­e­fits to over 600,000 cus­tomers.

The NIB re­ports to Par­lia­ment through the Min­istry of Fi­nance.