The government is looking for a "collaborative" approach to dealing with its pension problem, according to a Ministry of Finance official, who said that a committee that formed in May to tackle the $1.5 billion liability is expected to meet again "before the end of the year".
After announcing the formation of a committee to deal with the massive unfunded liability earlier this year, Minister of State for Finance Michael Halkitis said the committee members have met once and are due to reconvene over the next several months.
"We have had one meeting where we went through the report from KPMG, and we decided to set up sub-committees representing employers and employees."
"They have to study the report and come back with some recommendations, and so now what we have to do shortly is bring those two back together to look at their recommendations so we can advance the process," Halkitis told Guardian Business.
Several observers, including KPMG (Bahamas), which was hired to study the matter, have issued strongly-worded warnings about the government's unfunded pension liability, given its potential impact on the government's long-term fiscal sustainability. The liability does not show up on the government's balance sheet, given its use of cash-based accounting.
Halkitis said that the government is hoping to be "as collaborative as possible" in its approach to dealing with the pension liability.
"We don't want to impose anything on anyone. We want to come up with solutions that work," he said.
The level of activity described by Halkitis is unlikely to be reassuring to those such as Raymond Winder, managing partner at Deloitte and Touche (Bahamas), who

has raised red flags over the government's pension liability and the need to act sooner rather than later if the government is to avoid a massive drag on its fiscal position.
In a report released in June KPMG said "The current unchecked growth in defined benefit pension liabilities can be likened to the iceberg that sank the Titanic.
"Currently, government employees in the public service receive a defined benefit pension, which is paid out of recurrent expenditures when they retire - in other words, there is no pension fund supporting these payments."
KPMG said the public service pension liabilities are estimated at $1.5 billion and should increase to $2.5 billion by 2022 and $4.1 billion by 2032, if left unchecked.
"Annual payments out of recurrent expenditures amount to $60 million per annum, with staff gratuities totaling another $25 million.
"It is expected that these will increase to around $140 million by 2022 (less than 10 years away), as more and more current public service employees retire. Clearly, this is unsustainable."
Halkitis said: "The liability is huge, and it is projected to get even bigger as we move along unless we do something. This has been going on for years, but the sooner we can address it the better."
"The first thing is to make sure we have all of the stakeholders in studying the issues."

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