LETTER: Social Security need to get their act in order.

Alex thank you for the article you offered to pen here. Yes you note that there are not many comments to this article. However, you should know that most of the persons commenting on this website are for the most part politically motivated. This areticle is not political. Unless it was that social security was late in paying pensions. Then their discuss would not be addressed to social security, but toward the government. And in particular Gaston Browne. They like to take up any stone they can throw in his direction.
I put the blame of its current operation at his feet. Things are rotten from the top. And I told him one day he will get the egg in his face. No doubt about that. When was the last time they presented their audited financials to parliament? There should be no excuse for them to not have the audited statement ready by June 30th as per Finance Administration Act. The PM himself indicated that ALL statutory companies are tardy with their Audited Financials. That says a lot of his stewardship as the head of Finance and Corporate Governance. We have enough accountants in the country that can be hire to bring all the accounts up to date. Whenever there are delays in presenting audited accounts it means a redflag to me. The auditors may not agree with some of the entries that are past as management accounts. By the way the PM made a statement last that management accounts are done in most of the corporations and I think he believes that is sufficient. Well I can tell him. In management accounts one can give you a six for a nine for months. Things could be miss classified or not expense and sitting on a suspense account. When the external Auditor comes in he most of the time through his very tactfull investigation of the books will bring certain things to light. I have seen books that showed a large profit in management accounts and when the audit was done it turn out to be a loss. Another statement from the PM was that he saw the management accounts from the funds and he claims that the administrative expenses were as a p[ercentage of the revenue acceptable. Well, these things should not belooked at on percentage ratio. Or it will mean the more money you ear, the more money you are allowed to spend. A better measurement is to compare the staff compliment with that of similar institution of the same quantity. You mentioned about their rental. Well from day one I have agrue about it. They own the Old Treasury building as well as the Old Mutual Building. Why didn’t they move into these buildings. Now they are spread over two buildings paying about $100K in rent a month. Monies that could be used to pay pensioners. And gues what, have you checked their fleet of vehicles. What is it they are running a Public Works Department or a Construction Company? And what is not public is the many overseas travel with the high paid per diem. There is lots of waste of funds and the PM doesn’t seem to care about it. And neither is the opposition. Things were the same under their watch anyway. We the people who contribute to the fund need to have more transparency and accountability as to how our monies are spend or invested. You speak about sale of lands at paynters. Social Security has been given many assets from this government in order to make book entries to lower the government’s debt to the funds. When Social Security does sell lands, they are liquidating these assets and thereby reducing the receivable from government in their books. This form part of the Debt to GDP ratio. I will not comment this time on the value these lands are been sold at against the value of the debt they represent. There is something called Loss on Sale of Fixed Assets. The books, when published will tell us. Furthermore Social Security is not a Real Estate Agent, and therefore should not be in the business of selling assets. They should leave this to a professional firm to do. But I smell a RAT. Someone is doing all the dealing and wheeling around. The Head Nigger in Charge as they call it. When they have power and Authority. One man doing all the wheeling and dealing.
In my opinion we need to restructure the entire system. The reporting and the power that the Act gives to one person. And the power and responsibility of the board. Because so far they are missing in action. All that they are concern about is getting their stipend. They do not really carry FUDICIARY responsibility. No one gets fired because they ran the fund into the ground or no one gets investigated for not doing their duty. The other thing that concerns me is, how the goevenrment is and was able to borrow monies from the funds and also how come they of all employers can be delinquent in the payment of their contributions. We need laws to protect the funds from government. It should not be possible for government to borrow and be behind with payment to the fund. This is the only time where I believe the board, if they were independent, should be taking the government to court, and hold the Minister of Finance to account. Just like they would do with any private employer that has not paid in to the funds.
Social Security is people’s livelihood. Some people only source of income in their latter years. And when others can take these funds and mismanage them, we should hold them accountable. It is a big crime in my opinion.
Unless the people do not standup for things to change that are not political. Nothing will change.

I just don’t understand why social security so messing?

Agreed Alex!!!

What is Browne saying bout social security? What is he doing to fix the mess in that place ?

No Alex, they are not meeting the objective…. They are taking people’s money every day but somebody has to struggle to receive money from them