Following, but not as a result of last week’s column addressing the parlous state to which Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon has brought the National Insurance Scheme, I had two very interesting conversations, one with a business leader and the other with an MP. In advance of consultations to be held with the actuary on his draft report on the eighth five-yearly actuarial report on the NIS, they both wanted to know my thoughts on the report’s findings and recommendations. Both seemed not to be in the least bit uncomfortable to admit that while they had last week’s Sunday Stabroek they did not get around to reading the newspaper or the full-page column on precisely that topic. We can only guess about their contribution to a consultation for which they would have been so hopelessly unprepared on a matter of such grave national importance, a matter that has been the subject of several articles over a recent two-week period.
It is even worse. By now we all should have been aware that the government of which Dr Roger Luncheon is the Cabinet Secretary and the Board of the NIS of which he is the Chairman, did not implement the recommendations contained in the sixth and the seventh actuarial reports on the Scheme at December 31, 2001 and 2006. But the two persons I spoke with apparently did not know about the parlous state of the Scheme, while my politician friend was