Government may not face a class action suit over its handling of the finances of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) after all.
That is the view of spokesperson for The Group of Disgruntled Barbadians Charlie Lewis who told Barbados TODAY that the fear of victimisation may prevent interested people from going forward with the case, even though they had been advised that they had “good legal standing” to take action against the NIS’ Board of Directors.
The group had contemplated taking the action after it announced earlier this month that the $4 billion NIS was in danger of being depleted within the next 12 to 20 years if urgent action was not taken.
Lewis, well known as Charlie Spice, said that while the initial group had almost doubled in size as more people expressed interest in being part of the case, quite a few of them either worked in Government or had children who worked in the public sector and they were afraid of being victimised.
“Initially, there were 17 people who wanted to participate in the class action lawsuit. That number grew from 17 to 30 persons. We [consulted] with an attorney and we were clear on what legal standing exists to take action, but the problem that we now have is that most of these people are afraid of [the] repercussions [of] taking this stance, so I am concerned that they probably will not go forward because about 20 of the persons are very concerned, very afraid, and the rest I believe will fizzle out,” Lewis said in a telephone interview on Monday afternoon.
“They are afraid of the children being disadvantaged and facing retribution from political figures, which is exactly what they’ve said to me. The mere fact that they were afraid to speak up for themselves certainly made me very concerned in the beginning that they may not go through with this, because in this small society that we live in we’ve always suffered in silence and there is a reason for that. There can be retribution and this is what they are concerned about.”
Lewis said the situation was unfortunate as the legal advice received was very positive.
“We were told that there is good legal standing to take action against the Board of Directors of the NIS for breach of trust and mismanagement of funds and giving cause for people’s futures to be jeopardised as a result of poor management of those funds.
“That was all subject to investigation and doing a subpoena to obtain documents in order to verify that legal standing. So, there would have had to be an inquiry and then of course lodge the suit and then the subpoena. Thereafter, they would then be confirmation of legal standing,” he explained.
Despite the hesitation by many in the group, Lewis said discussions were still continuing on the matter. (RB)
