The States should never have started a defined benefit pension scheme for their employees

This has created a serious apartheid between those islanders that are employed by the States and those that are not. Most employees in the private sector have no pension provision at all.

The apartheid is demonstrated by the brutal fact that the investment fund for the States Employees Defined Benefit Pensions Scheme is now in excess of £1,500,000,000.

Yes, more than £1.5bn, all of which has effectively been funded by all Guernsey taxpayers. This has been the salaries paid by the States from which the employee pension contribution is deducted plus the employer contribution from the States, which is currently about 9% of salaries.

This fund is massive when you consider that all the reserves of the States are about £500,000,000, yes one third the States Employee’s invested pension fund.

To make matters worse, if you read the small print of the States annual accounts, there is a little clause that says: ‘If the annual investment return of the States Employees Pension Fund falls below the benchmark of UK Retail Price Index plus 2% then the States (that is the Guernsey Taxpayers) will make good the shortfall’.

I cannot find any clause to say that the taxpayers will be refunded when there is a surplus above the benchmark.

Who had the right to make that commitment for all the taxpayers who are not members of the States employees defined benefit scheme? That commitment is immoral.

Whatever happens with the States Employees Pension fund, the responsibility for its investment performance must remain entirely with the fund beneficiaries.

R F WHARTON

St Andrew’s