Most retirees with pensions from the Ca­ribbean Netherlands Pension Fund PCN will receive their payments before this week­end, said PCN Chairman Harald Linkels on Thursday.

There had been recent grumblings among PCN re­tirees, mostly in Bonaire, after the fund published a notice that payments this month would be on January 25, which is about four days later than usual.

PCN Head of Administra­tion Dudley Wedervoort said the delay was due to many changes that needed to be processed this month, such as an adjustment to the tax-free amount and the fund’s indexation as of January 1 (see related story).

“The final decision on in­dexation depended on the coverage ratio on December 31, 2023. The exact figures were only known around the 10th of this month,” said Wedervoort.

PCN said in a statement that its Payables Department worked extra hard and man­aged to send the payments to retirees’ respective banks on Wednesday evening.

“This means that a large part of our retirees will have money in their accounts this week, between Thursday and Friday,” said Wedervoort, al­though acknowledging that this mainly applied to those paid through Maduro and Curiel’s Bank (MCB) Bo­naire.

Retirees with foreign ac­counts may have to wait a few days more until the payment clears, PCN said.

At the end of the day, we paid almost on the same date as usual. We regret if we unintentionally caused con­cern among our customers, although this, in retrospect, proved unnecessary,” said Linkels. “We know that Jan­uary is a long and often dif­ficult month for many people on the island, and that is naturally no different for our retirees.”

Linkels also thanked PCN personnel for their extra ef­forts. “Our people have done everything possible to imple­ment the changes as quickly as possible and still pay on time,” he said.

The Daily Herald.