RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul says he is con­sid­er­ing ad­just­ing Old Age Pen­sion up­wards once the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is re-elect­ed, but said this will de­pend on “fis­cal space.”

He al­so said there will be a faster dis­burse­ment of funds to pay school clean­ers and maxi taxi con­ces­sion­aires who have suf­fered for months with­out a salary.

Dhan­paul, who spoke with re­porters fol­low­ing the open­ing of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) head­quar­ters at La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day, was asked about con­cerns raised on the cam­paign trail.

On the is­sue of pen­sions, Dhan­paul said the se­nior cit­i­zens’ grant will re­main un­changed, and if there is to be any ad­just­ment it will be up­ward.

“In the next bud­get, I will out­line all the plans of the gov­ern­ment to take that be­yond the 50 years, as I men­tioned,” he said.

“Once the fis­cal al­lows, we will ad­just up­wards de­pend­ing on the type of fis­cal space that we have.”

Not­ing that not every­one qual­i­fies for the grant, he added: “Ob­vi­ous­ly, it has to be means-test­ed. You don’t want mil­lion­aires get­ting a se­nior cit­i­zens’ grant.”

On the cam­paign trail, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had raised con­cerns about peo­ple be­ing de­prived of the se­nior cit­i­zens’ grant be­cause of pro­posed changes to the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria. She claimed a clause in the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ Pen­sion and Pub­lic As­sis­tance) Bill, 2024, would dis­qual­i­fy in­di­vid­u­als with more than $25,000 in bank sav­ings from re­ceiv­ing the pen­sion.

Asked whether funds to pay school maxi taxi dri­vers and clean­ers will be re­leased on time, Dhan­paul said there would be quick­er dis­burse­ment of funds un­der his watch.

NIB chair­man Patrick Fer­reira said the NIB has start­ed go­ing af­ter em­ploy­ers who do not pay con­tri­bu­tions for their work­ers and is fol­low­ing le­gal pro­ce­dures to ad­dress cas­es of non-pay­ment.

“We know we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the em­ploy­ees, so we stand by our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, but we al­so are go­ing af­ter the er­rant em­ploy­ees to the full ex­tent of the law, you know, there are laws . . . there’s a process and we are fol­low­ing the process,” he said.

Fer­reira said a toll-free num­ber is avail­able for re­ports to be made and field op­er­a­tions have in­creased.

“We have start­ed that process, we have strength­ened the de­part­ment, so we are now on the field, so we will see the re­sults com­ing for­ward,” he added.

He said the board’s dig­i­tal sys­tem will al­low con­trib­u­tors to see their pay­ment records in re­al-time.

When asked if any com­pa­nies had been pros­e­cut­ed, Fer­reira said the process was on­go­ing.