Delinquent business owners are forewarned that  the government is  cracking down on those  who deduct National Insurance contributions from employees, but yet fail to actually pass that money along to NIB. 

“It is perhaps bordering on criminal if I take your money from you to make a contribution to the social security network and you get sick,  then suddenly find out that your contributions were not paid, then that’s an issue. 

“What we say to every single employee though is there is a means by which you can go to NIB and go online to see whether your contributions are being paid,” he said. 

According to NIB Minister, Brensil Rolle, NIB is paying out more in benefits than it collects in contributions, an issue he accepts the government must look into.

After all, there could come a day when NIB runs out of resources.

“I  think our actuarial have suggested 10 years from now, I can’t remember specifically what the drop dead date is,  but again we’re not a money making institute, we collect contributions from you to payout benefits to you and that’s all we do,” Minister Rolle said. 

 In hopes of avoiding this, the Minister gave this suggestion for Bahamian workers.

“If our contributions are not equal to our benefits,  then only two things can happen, either we can ask you to increase your contribution so that we can pay your benefits or we have to decrease your benefits to become equal to your contributions,” the Minister said.  

The Minister’s strongly advising everyone to ensure NIB payouts are up to date.