Dear Sir,

My neighbour, a cleaning lady who has worked for two families for 30 years, went to the Department of Social Insurance to check on her pension situation. While there, she discovered that one of her employers had not contributed to her account for a few years. My neighbour was advised to discuss this with her employer, but he simply rejected what she had to say, claiming the social insurance department had made a mistake.

As far as she could tell, my neighbour has no recourse — and she was concerned about angering her employer and possibly losing her job. The Government does not seem to track and enforce contributions by the employer. So this means that when she starts receiving her government pension, it will be less than it should be.

In November 2016, there was a startling report in the local media stating that, in the case of social insurance, there was $42.8 million owed in unpaid employer contributions. At the time, the plan proposed was to have the Director of Public Prosecutions pursue these matters with both civil and criminal prosecutions.

I remember that the Sage Commission revealed that there was a shocking amount of money owed to the Government in past-due land taxes and that there was no real plan being put in place to try to recoup these millions, as the department had only a couple of employees.

For Bermuda to have many tens of millions of dollars left outstanding like this does not make sense. Maybe we should enlist private enterprise to go after these delinquents, paying the collectors a fee.

Here is a good way for the new Government to show that it is financially savvy by picking this relatively low-hanging fruit.

LIVING-IN-PARADISE