Employers will soon find it harder to get away with not passing on their employees' pensions contributions to the Contributory Pension Fund.

"You can rest assured that it's something we are addressing and we certainly think of it as a high priority," said Finance Minister Eugene Cox. He told The Royal Gazette that systematic changes were being made to remove deficiencies in Government's revenue management which has allowed employers to cheat their employees from their pension contributions.

Millions of dollars are still owed by employers - money that belongs to their employees. Failure to make good those debts will mean that at retirement hundreds of Bermudians may find their pension benefits coming up short.

Arrears amounted to more than $10 million according to the last Auditor's Report which was published earlier this year. Half of that figure represents employees paycheque deductions. And it effectively amounts to theft.

'We are certainly working on having a system in place that will be recording and be able to alert the Government and the employee and others that this is taking place," said Mr. Cox.

He said tightening up the debt collection procedures will be a "win-win for everybody - and it's a do-able".

The Public Accounts Committee now headed up by shadow finance minister Grant Gibbons has recommended that Government enact legislation to the House which would allow for individual employees to be notified of their individual insurance contribution records on an annual basis. That recommendation - made in the committee's last report to the Minister - echoes the auditor's report published this year.

And Larry Dennis, the independent auditor of Government accounts, also recommended that the worst violators be subject to criminal prosecution and that Government charge interest on arrears.

Mr. Cox said the issue had been brought to the attention of the previous administration when he headed up the public accounts committee as Shadow Minister of Finance. And pointed out that the Government had inherited a perennial problem that had not been adequately addressed by previous administrations.

"This is something that is serious now that they are no longer the Government," he said referring to the recent report by the Public Accounts Committee now chaired by Grant Gibbons.

"But when they were in the Government and had the opportunity to do things to guarantee the security of those funds they never did it. So as part of our policy we want to make sure we put in place the mechanisms and the staffing required".

Mr. Cox would not get into details of how the problem was being tackled, saying he did not want to discuss the specifics in public at the moment.

"If the Shadow Minister wants to raise questions he can put them forward in the House and get answers," said the Minister. "But you can rest assured that this is certainly not good fiscal management and it is certainly illegal for people to be taking money from an employee and not putting it in the Government coffers to meet the demands for their pension at a later date. So obviously we are concerned about it and it is a high priority with us and always has been".

He said there had been in years past a system which allowed employees to verify that their contributions were up to date, but the system had been abandoned and not replaced before the ruling Progressive Labour Party came into power.

The Department of Social Insurance has revamped its computer systems to allow for annual confirmation of contributions paid and had set July as the start date for a policy of passing on that information to contributors on an annual basis . The Royal Gazette could not confirm by press time whether that deadline has been met.

Meanwhile employees who want to check whether their company is up to date with their payments can ask their employers directly or contact the Department of Social Insurance.

Alternatively, the Auditor publishes his own list of the worst offenders in his annual report.

"Every person has to realise these are people's future we are dealing with," said Mr. Cox. "It's a very grave and serious situation to be denying" them their hard earned pensions. "And that's why in the not too distant future I think you will see what is being done".