Pension Joy

Article by DONNA SEALY and ALEX DOWNES

APPROXIMATELY 40 000 of Barbados’ seniors will be among the happiest citizens this Christmas. They have received an unexpected 6.24 per cent across-the-board increase in their contributory pensions and benefits.

The larger than usual pension cheques, which took most by surprise, were confirmed by Director of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS), Ian Carrington, in a short telephone interview with the DAILY NATION yesterday.

He said: “In October, Minister of Finance [Chris] Sinckler increased the non-contributory by $10 per week. As per our agreement when we did pension reform, we looked at it again and realised there were no increases in 2015 or 2016 and we got the cumulative increase that they would have gotten in [both years]. So, yes, there is an increase in pensions and it takes effect from January 2, which I think is the first pension date in January.”

All week long pensioners have been talking about the increases and questioning whether there had been an error. (DS/AD)

Please read the full story in today’s Daily Nation, or in the eNATION edition.