Minister of Public Health Social Development & Labor, Cornelius De Weever was extremely instrumental in getting the staff of the St. Maarten Laboratory Services (SLS) to join the Pension Fund of St. Maarten (APS).
The personnel of SLS were recently awarded the right to participate in the pension fund APS. With this appointment, the individual employees are now afforded the opportunity to build up a senior’s pension. This will give them the security of a monthly income when they reach the retirement age. In addition to a senior’s pension, the family of SLS employees are entitled to widow(er)’s and orphans’ pension benefits as a consequence of participating in the pension fund.
“I am very happy that the employees of SLS are now part of the pension fund as they now continue to work towards a secure future, and I am happy that I could have been of some assistance along the way,” said Minister De Weever.
Their participation in the pension fund is based on article 5 of the Pensioenlandsverordening Overheidsdienaren (AB 2013, GT no. 785), which affords personnel of government-related organizations the right to build up pension benefits with APS – much like a civil servant working for the government of St. Maarten.
Leading up to the appointment of the personnel of SLS as participants in the pension fund, the management of SLS submitted a formal request hereto to the Ministry of Public Health Social Development & Labor. As part of the request, SLS management needed to show the organization’s financial ability to cover pension premiums and other potential financial obligations to the fund, seeing that the timely receipt of pension-related payments is very important to the financial health and sustainability of the pension fund. APS assisted the management of SLS in this regard.
The majority of the more than 30 employees of SLS were previously building up pension benefits with the predecessor to APS, APNA, via their former employer Analytisch Diagnostisch Centrum (ADC). There was however no agreement in place between SLS and the former APNA through which the St. Maarten-based personnel of ADC who transferred to SLS in September 2008, could continue to build up pension.
Since it was not considered desirable for the employees of SLS to run the risk of a pension gap and therefore receive no pension for the years worked after September 2008, the three parties SLS, the Ministry of Public Health Social Development & Labor and APS, worked on the legal basis through which the SLS employees are again able to participate in the pension fund as of September 1, 2008.
SLS and APS are in the final stages of updating the employees’ details in the pension fund administration and in drafting a service level agreement, which once signed will govern the working relationship between both parties going forward.