In June 2018 our new ExPo Committee held a committee meeting at Prospect and invited two of our ExPo members, Mike Shaw and Kevin Knights, along with Andrew Harewood, President of the Police Association, to discuss the situation regarding our police pensions and the fact that we have not had any cost of living increases for the past 6 years due to the then Government putting a freeze on all civil service pension increases.
Mike and Kevin had made several approaches to their Members of Parliament, one being our Premier, The Hon. David Burt, enquiring about whether or not we could expect the freeze to be continued despite the fact pension investment funds appear to have prospered during the last 4 years.
Earlier in the year “Moby” Pett had written to the Pension Commissioner expressing concern about there having been no cost of living increases in our pensions for at least the past 6 years, and asking what our retired police officers can expect moving forward.
Andrew Harewood had been invited to the ExPo meeting so he could be made aware of our concerns, and to impress on the Police Association that a continued freeze would impact every police officer due to retire and should, therefore, be of concern to every members of the BPS.
We are waiting to hear from Andrew as to what position the Police Association might take, but in the meantime there have been two articles in the local media during the past week which shed some light on pertinent issues surrounding the civil service pension scheme.
The first was an interview with Premier David Burt on Retirement Age and Pensions which you can view at http://bernews.com/2018/08/video-premier-on-retirement-age-pensions/
The Premier’s comments follow after the recently released Auditor General’s report referred to a review indicating that under the current system the fund could be “exhausted in 2049″.
The second article,”Experts: We face hard choices on pensions” appeared in the Royal Gazette on 20th August in which political commentators Denis Pitcher, and Robert Stewart issued warnings over the state of Bermuda’s public retirement pot, which has been forecast to run out in 2049 if nothing is done to tackle its stretched reserves. This article can be viewed in the Royal Gazette at http://www.royalgazette.com/news/article/20180820/experts-we-face-hard-choices-on-pensions
Mr Stewart, a former lecturer in economics (and a former Bermuda police oficer), said the “politicians would like us to believe” that money paid into the pension fund is held in account, but that is not the case. He continued: “Your contributions go into the fund but are immediately paid out to people who have retired.”
We strongly recommend that you read these two articles along with the Bernews article, Auditor General Report on Consolidated Fund published on 10th August which you can view at http://bernews.com/2018/08/auditor-general-report-consolidated-fund/
We will keep you up-to-date on what, if any action ExPo can consider taking with regard to our pensions, but in the meantime you are invited to let us have your views, either through our Comments section below, or by emailing us at info@expobermuda.com