While former City Market staff continue to await their retirement and severance pay-outs, parliamentarians yesterday debated the Employee Pension Fund Protection Bill. The Bill seeks to ensure the long term security of pension funds, particularly in the private sector, and how they are managed and regulated. Speaking to MPs in the House of Assembly, State Legal Affairs Minister Damian Gomez charged that the Bill could not have come at a better time, given the examples of failed funds in recent times.

Mr Gomez said: “Indeed I believe there are numerous victims in our community who had suffered having had contributions deducted from their salaries and not being able to access them because we simply didn’t have he legal framework in place to offer the level of protection which this Bill seeks to provide.” Leslie Miller, Tall Pines MP, urged the government to allow the Bill to apply retroactively to persons who lost money as far back as 10 years ago.

He said such a clause would even assist Clico customers who have yet to receive any reimbursements. Meanwhile, FNM leader Dr Hubert Minnis criticised the government for failing to table any regulations. He said the Christie administration has taken a piecemeal approach to the Bill. Dr Minnis said: “We in the FNM accept that the required regulations are very technical in nature and this Bill is ineffective without regulation. An FNM administration would have brought the Bill and regulations as a package, as opposed to a piecemeal approach of the PLP.”

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