If noth­ing is done at this point in time to the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance (NIS) sys­tem, the NIS Fund which has al­most $28 bil­lion, is es­ti­mat­ed to last an­oth­er 22 years - un­til 2043, ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert.

He gave the as­sur­ance about the fund in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, dis­miss­ing Op­po­si­tion claims about the “im­pend­ing in­sol­ven­cy“ of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) which Im­bert said was, “an ab­sur­di­ty!’’

Im­bert was re­spond­ing to Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh who asked about the cur­rent sta­tus of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board of Trinidad and To­ba­go and what firm mea­sures are ex­pect­ed to be ef­fect­ed to save NIBTT from “im­pend­ing in­sol­ven­cy.“

Im­bert replied, “There’s a pro­pa­gan­da tech­nique per­fect­ed dur­ing the Sec­ond World War which is a gross dis­tor­tion or mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the truth - it was called the Big Lie.“

Both Im­bert and Op­po­si­tion MP Roodal Mooni­lal - who queried the use of the word “lie” with­drew their re­spec­tive use of the word. Im­bert con­tin­ued his re­ply, “(In­dars­ingh’s) ques­tion is based on a to­tal­ly false premise. The word ‘im­pend­ing’ means ‘like­ly to hap­pen soon’ (but) the NIS Fund cur­rent­ly stands at al­most $28 bil­lion!“

Apart from the NIS Fund be­ing $28, bil­lion Im­bert added that 2020 the fund gen­er­at­ed re­turns of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1 bil­lion and NIS was re­quired to pay­out ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1 bil­lion leav­ing the fund in­tact at 28 bil­lion.

“If noth­ing’s done at this point in time, it’s es­ti­mat­ed the fund will be de­plet­ed in 2043!” he said.

Asked about NIB dis­pos­ing of as­sets to gen­er­ate rev­enue for the fund, Im­bert said that wasn’t a mat­ter for the Min­is­ter, but was a mat­ter for the NIS Board which has $28 bil­lion in as­sets and if noth­ing is done to it, the NIS sys­tem the fund will last for an­oth­er 22 years.

He said In­dars­ingh’s claims were, “fan­ta­sy pro­mot­ed by the UNC - ridicu­lous fan­ta­sy!”

Asked by In­dars­ingh about con­trib­u­tors to the fund de­clin­ing over 2015-2020, Im­bert point­ed out that he an­swered that when he read a state­ment on the NIB mat­ter in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day.