Final extension made for pension holiday
(CNS): The government is extending the private pension payment freeze for the last time. The holiday on the mandatory payments by employers and employees was rolled out to help people navigate first the lockdown and then the border closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But now that Cayman is moving towards lifting all restrictions, the Ministry of Labour said that the holiday will end on 30 June.
“While it has been helpful to individuals and businesses to suspend the pension requirement during the past two years, we are now at a point in time where it is in the best interest of employees to resume the funding of their pensions,” said Premier Wayne Panton.
“It is the responsible approach to adopt, given the improving economic environment, and the government is providing advance notice of this to allow employees and businesses to prepare for the resumption of these payments.”
The rationale behind the pension holiday was to give companies more available money to cover expenses like payroll and health insurance contributions during the pandemic and to reduce the immediate financial burden of employees to help with their living expenses.
“The pandemic created challenges for both employees and employers as well as those currently seeking employment,” said Labour Minister Chris Saunders.
“With the relaxation of some travel restrictions, the resumption of commercial airline flights and the upcoming reintroduction of cruise tourism, the decision to extend the pension holiday for another three months was made to allow additional time for businesses to grow to full strength as the country reopens.”
Saunders has stated on many occasions that the current pension regime is inadequate and needs a complete overhaul. However, after eleven months as finance minister, he has not presented any new policy ideas on how the private sector workforce will be able to fund their retirement in one of the world’s most expensive jurisdictions and a minimum wage of $6 per hour.
In addition, retirees on the mandatory pension plans can only withdraw $1,000 per month from their own and their employers’ basic contributions, no matter how much they have in the fund, which is not enough to live on.
As with the previous pension holiday periods, statutory authorities and government-owned companies are excluded from the order, and therefore must continue to make pension contributions to their respective plans.
Voluntary pension contributions by employees or employers can still be paid into pension funds. The other party is not required to also contribute.
Contact dlp@gov.ky for more information.
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Category: Business, Local News
Wait wasn’t it Saunders who pounded up the pension companies and advocated for them to be put out of business ? Now he is reinstating their life line ? Life on the other side of the Parliament is much different huh? Chris ?
does anyone in cig understand the concept behind pension payments?
Well thank you PACT for continuing PPM’s 5% pay cut….how are you different again? Is it the openly begging industry to give Cayman citizens equality in their own country? PPM ignored Caymanian needs for sake of work permit revenues and private partnerships also. You’re a joke
This allowance on businesses to not pay pensions has been so poorly regulated. Me and my partner both work for companies that have not been affected by the pandemic yet they see an opportunity to save a bit of money and take it. The companies should have to prove that they are being impacted, complete joke they can just take advantage.
I think it depends on the employer, mine has been paying throughout.
Everyone gets their holiday extended and the MLAs keep double dipping.
If this is going to start up again, it should be voluntary. These pension funds are gambling with our money, and you can’t even live off the 1k a month they RESTRICT you to. Like someone else said, I can invest my own money somewhere else and be better off. Give people their freedom to decide.
#brettwasright
yes..but people are sick of their pensions being poorly managed year after year…
Didn’t we just pay 2 million dollars for a foreign child to get a treatment that might not even work so why not this? Although I hope people realise no Govt can keep this pay for everything for everyone up much longer.
This is ridiculous! Why are the insuraycimpanies allowed to get away with not paying?
Basic Health Insurance Plans in Cayman (which are mandatory for every worker) cover you for a doctors visit and a pack of strepsels.
Anything else is coming out your pocket.
Irrespective of whether you like it or not, that child is not “foreign “.
This has to be one of their most irresponsible decisions.
1. Allowed people to sell and withdraw from their pensions when the market was bottoming (in 2020). The worst thing you can do in investing is sell the bottom.
2. Did not require people to contribute to pensions when the market was sold off.
You literally want to do the exact opposite, contribute more and dont sell. If you cant do that, just dont sell….
Yes, there are plently of people here who dont need their pensions because they have plently of $. Equally, there is also a very large amount of people who now have laughable pensions because they sold as much of it as they could and didnt contribute for 2 years. Good luck to them when they retire.
When bull markets wane, it’s time to rotate the asset allocation into faster bear market horses, not buy more of what is losing. Better to self direct that without the fee drag of intervening pension manager and fund MER, which is what some people were smart enough to do. Everyone, smart or dumb, should understand their registered pension assets, regardless of funded status, are not going to float anyone into a comfortable retirement.
There are some Caymanian owned businesses who have been extremely profitable over the last few years, but yet have forced their employees to take the pension holiday. Thereby actually increasing their bottom line by 5%.
There should have been better oversight of this pension holiday scheme, it is grossly unfair that this situation has been allowed to exist.
Nooooo!!! I could actually make money with my own money. These dimwitted fools will just put it in a Russian fund or something.
World’s longest game of kick the can.
And do you really think by june 30th 2022 everything will be back to normal
It is back to normal. The only thing not back to normal is travel cayman and mask theatre.
The money I don,t pay into my pension is like moving money from my pension piggy bank to my bank account.
It stays my money. The money my employer doesn’t pay in my pension, moves from my pension account to his bank account. This is a direct loss for me and a direct income for him. For a company with close to 100 employees and not effected by covid the 2 year pension contribition amount ending up in the pockets of the company owners is huge.
Suspending pension contributions is not helpful to saving employees, it short-changes them while giving a cash break to business owners. Those foregone contributions add up to large missing savings at retirement – gaps that a future CIG will need to fill.
I’m a business owner, and have been paying a 10% bonus on payroll while the pension holiday is in effect.
Yes, its very stupid. There are businesses who did the responsible thing and continued contributing (irrespective of if the employee didnt) but i am sure there are plenty who just pocketed the extra cash.
That little break should have given all the delinquent Caymanian business owners a chance to catch up on their legal obligations.
Yes- ’cause it was plenty thievery happening with these private pensions. ☠ 🇰🇾
Has Fidelity Pension Fund Cayman Ltd. (now, Royal Fidelity Pension Fund Bermuda) properly reconciled vested pensioners accounts & settled their COVID-19 Pension Fund Withdrawals?
And, what about those employers who were pilfering employees pension contributions, have they yet accounted for & properly appropriated funds to their rightful & legally established employee pension accountants?
COVID-19 Years 2020-2021 😷🤒💉 was truly an interesting time in history 🤧😊