MTC is now known as IT&E.
Dela Cruz, Covenant-Saipan, has written a letter to IT&E executive vice president Larry Knecht about “these former employees’ plight.”
He reminded Knecht about IT&E’s reduced franchise fee approved by the Legislature.
Dela Cruz told Variety that MTC owes its more than 100 former employees over $1 million.
Months before the original March 22 deadline for the payment of the pensions, IT&E requested for an extension.
The deadline was rescheduled for June this year.
In a separate interview, Knecht said they are asking for another six months before they can pay the former employees.
He said he has already talked to Dela Cruz regarding market conditions and the market value of the pension funds.
The distribution of the lump sum pension payments will take place as soon as approval is received from the U.S. Pension Benefits Commission.
“It’s not a question of ‘if’ — it’s a question of ‘when’ this distribution will take place,” Knecht said.
He said the MTC retirees who are members of the pension program continue to receive their monthly payments.
But some of these members want to get a lump sum payment.
IT&E, he added, has terminated its previous pension plan and adopted the 401(k) plan.
Through this plan, employees can “roll their pension over” in case they move to another company.
Knecht said the delay in payments results in a windfall for them because they avail of their old pension plan and their 401(k) contributions.
“So they are getting the best of both worlds,” he said
Knecht said because the value of the original plan’s assets are now less than what they were “when we decided to do this originally, we want to wait until the value of the plan assets returns to where it was.”
When that happens, Knecht said they will distribute lump sum payments to the retirees.
