The Tribune

IN today’s Tribune, we reveal the scale of losses to the National Insurance Board due to the COVID-19 pandemic. What we cannot reveal is what anyone is doing about it.

COVID has left a $190m hole in NIB’s reserve fund – but that is just one more big blow to our social safety net after years and years of not facing up to the problem of dwindling resources.

That COVID should have cost a sizeable amount should be no surprise. The pandemic brought with it furloughs and a spike in unemployment. Fewer people working means less income for NIB. On top of that, there will have been a greater call on its resources as people turn to the fund to get by in times of hardship, or to meet costs they would otherwise have met out of their salary. Lower income, higher outgoings – there’s no rocket science needed here.

Still, if the fund was building up before COVID rather than running down, that hole could have been handled. As it is, it merely compounds the problems we were already facing.

We were already on a timer counting down to when the NIB fund would run out – COVID has just accelerated it.

In the House of Assembly yesterday, Myles Laroda, the minister of state with responsibility for NIB, confirmed that total payouts have exceeded contributions and investment combined every year since 2016.

That means the fund has been digging into its reserves. Those reserves are getting smaller and smaller.

So what do we do? Mr Laroda, to his credit, has spoken of the need to address the problem. It may not win him many friends politically to say so – but it has to be said. He has previously said that he anticipates NIB contribution rates will increase in the next year.

Government press secretary Clint Watson, meanwhile, denied any plan to tax Bahamians to save NIB and said that taxing was “the lazy way out”.

Without spelling out any details, he said the government was finding other ways to fund the National Insurance Board. There was no such funding detailed in the Budget, which may make some inclined to think Mr Watson was talking nonsense.

As for Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis, he has previously said a rate increase was not going to happen.

The latest financial statements detail the extent to which action needs to be taken to shore up NIB’s position. It spells out that NIB is in a financial hole years in the making and that is only getting deeper.

What has not been spelled out is how the government intends to remedy the situation. There is no easy solution. There is no magic wand. The fund needs to get to a position where its income exceeds its outgoings, it is as simple as that.

Increasing contributions, increasing taxes is never a popular solution – but how popular will a government be if it oversees the moment our safety net reaches bankruptcy?

Bold decisions are needed. And the longer the wait, the bigger that hole gets.

Homeless pets

The news that animals at the shelter in Grand Bahama are often being put to sleep – more than half of them – shows how overwhelming a situation the centre faces.

Too many animals coming in, not enough adoptions, and not enough money.

As executive director Tip Burrows points out, “Since Dorian and the pandemic, it has just gotten worse because people are struggling.”

There are three things that can be done, though.

First, if you’ve got the space, and can cope with an animal around the house, adopt. You would be very welcome as a volunteer to take an animal home.

Secondly, if you can spare some money towards the shelter’s costs, it would be gratefully received.

There is a third option, however – too many of these animals are being born to no homes because not enough of our pets are being neutered. There are programmes such as BAARK, which aims to spay and neuter animals, with the goal of reducing the number of strays on our streets. Many veterinary surgeries have their own schemes too.

These animals never asked to be abandoned – so if you can help, please do.