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Thursday, June 12, 2025

Business groups welcome retirement age adjustment

by

Dareece Polo
617 days ago
20231004
TTMA president Roger Roach, second from left, shakes hands with Minister of Finance Colm Imbert, as EY executive chairman Wade George, left, and economist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon look on during the TTMA’s post-budget presentation at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

TTMA president Roger Roach, second from left, shakes hands with Minister of Finance Colm Imbert, as EY executive chairman Wade George, left, and economist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon look on during the TTMA’s post-budget presentation at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

A cross-sec­tion of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), Trinidad and To­ba­go As­so­ci­a­tion of Re­tired Per­sons (TTARP) and Ernst and Young, say they agree with Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to in­crease the re­tire­ment age, but there are al­so rec­om­men­da­tions for the State to turn its at­ten­tion to er­rant busi­ness own­ers who fail to pay na­tion­al in­sur­ance for staff.

Dur­ing his 2024 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion on Mon­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert re­vealed that the Gov­ern­ment will be press­ing ahead with its plan to in­crease the re­tire­ment age from the cur­rent 60 years to 65.

Once the pro­pos­al takes ef­fect, em­ploy­ees will have the op­tion to work for five more years be­fore they tap in­to the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Re­tire­ment Ben­e­fit (NIB). Cur­rent­ly, in­di­vid­u­als who make a min­i­mum of 750 con­tri­bu­tions earn a pay­out of $3,000 per month from the fund. With the pop­u­la­tion liv­ing longer, the fund has re­duced sig­nif­i­cant­ly, and the Gov­ern­ment is at­tempt­ing to close the gap.

Speak­ing at the TTMA’s post-bud­get dis­cus­sion at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent Roger Roach said while the Gov­ern­ment must take steps to en­sure the longevi­ty of the fund, the State should al­so turn its at­ten­tion to busi­ness­es that are fail­ing to pay NIS for staff.

“The net is not wide enough in terms of NIS con­tri­bu­tions like tax col­lec­tions. You have a num­ber of busi­ness­es who are not mak­ing those NIS con­tri­bu­tions on be­half of their em­ploy­ees. They’ve fall­en be­low the radar and if the net is widened and you get con­tri­bu­tions from more busi­ness­es, more in­di­vid­u­als, then that could help to plug the gap,” Roach said.

Im­bert, who al­so spoke at the event, agreed with the sug­ges­tion, as he said the Gov­ern­ment is not get­ting the full al­lo­ca­tion of tax­es from a work­force that teeters around 600,000. He said just 400,000 peo­ple are re­li­gious­ly pay­ing NIS.

“So where are those 200,000 peo­ple? It’s some­thing that we have to deal with,” Im­bert said.

Al­so con­tact­ed, TTARP ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Reynold Coop­er wel­comed the move but said it should not be a manda­to­ry de­ci­sion. He added that the State should al­so as­sure that young peo­ple do not suf­fer the con­se­quence of this move.

“It should be op­tion­al and not com­pul­so­ry. On the oth­er hand, too, we al­so be­lieve that there should be some way to de­vel­op the econ­o­my, to grow the econ­o­my, so that younger per­sons should be able to find em­ploy­ment. Be­cause what we don’t want hap­pen­ing, is that an el­der­ly per­son is de­priv­ing a younger per­son from do­ing some work,” Coop­er said.

Mean­while, some mem­bers of the pub­lic agreed while oth­ers found the in­crease in the re­tire­ment age a back­ward ini­tia­tive.

Barataria res­i­dent Jan­ice Joseph, 66, who was an as­sis­tant at the Min­istry of Labour, said she would have worked longer if she had the op­tion.

“The five years more is not bad be­cause some­times, right, yuh still in yuh prime, yuh still vi­brant. I wish I was still work­ing but I had to go. They need us to train the younger ones to come up to mark. So, rais­ing the NIS? Eh eh, we mon­ey too small for that,” she said.

How­ev­er, June Ed­wards, 83, dis­agreed with the pro­pos­al. She said peo­ple who have de­vot­ed years to work would like­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the down­time.

“No, I would not like to work. When I reach my 60 I want to leave. It could be a good choice if yuh reach 60 and re­lax your­self at home af­ter get­ting up every morn­ing ear­ly,” she said.

An­nette Alexan­der, 73, who spray-paint­ed ve­hi­cles be­fore she re­tired, shared a sim­i­lar view. She said not every­one would be able-bod­ied at that age.

“From the time you turn 50, you start get­ting ail­ments – sug­ar, pres­sure, heart. So, at that case now, how a per­son with these things could work? Let them give the peo­ple they mon­ey, they na­tion­al in­sur­ance on time and they pen­sion, be­cause this is what they’re breaks­ing from,” she said.


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