Actuary recommends hiking contribution rate, pension age to 65
The National Insurance Scheme (NIS) is nearing a crisis stage, according to the latest actuarial report, and a number of steps have been urged for immediate execution including the raising
of the contribution rate from 13% to 15% no later than January next year, hiking the wage ceiling to $200,000 per month and a phased raising of the pension age from 60 to 65.
Dated October 18, 2012, the draft eighth actuarial review of the NIS poses a major problem for the government as it points out that no remedial action had been taken since 2008 when the 7th actuarial review had proposed a number of reforms. Moreover, a NIS reform committee appointed by the government had made reform recommendations in 2007 but there was no meaningful change. Since 1992, the NIS has been chaired by the Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon and he has been severely criticized by several commentators for not leading policy changes. The NIS’s finances had further been clouded by the impairing of its $5.8B investment in CLICO several years ago.
Done by Actuarial and Financial Consultants, Horizonow, the Executive Summary of the actuarial report noted that in 2011 the NIS experienced its
