Finance Minister Grant Gibbons yesterday confirmed that public accounts will adhere to new accounting standards as of the consolidated fund financial statements for the year to March 31, 1995, which are now being prepared.

But he did not see unfunded pension liabilities, outlined in the 1994 financial statements, as necessarily a part of the official national debt.

Responding to a story in yesterday's The Royal Gazette that placed national debt at $380 million through the inclusion of the pension liabilities, he said such liabilities are not guaranteed by government and are not classified as part of the national debt.

He clarified, "The government would obviously have a moral obligation if the fund failed, but there is no government guarantee of the fund other than that moral obligation.

"We do include guarantees like the National Education Loan Guarantee plan that recently went from $2,000,000 to $4,000,000. That would come under the government statutory borrowing limit of $185 million, but pension liabilities do not.

"The national debt is strictly defined under the Government Loans Act 1978 as those sorts of areas that government has a contractually borrowing responsibility to repay. In 199 3/94, the debt outstanding was $76.7 million.'' He said, "The pension liability for the Superannuation Fund is a shared responsibility between government and the employee. Contributions from both will reduce the unfunded liability.'' Dr. Gibbons said that it is not unusual for such pension funds to not be fully funded. Although the complete liability is recognised, such schemes were not fully funded, because it would be an unusual scenario for all the beneficiaries to suddenly require benefit payments immediately.

He said, "Most pension funds are not completely funded, but that is where the actuarial advice is used in terms of what is required as reasonable and necessary to deal with the fund's near term liabilities.'' But he also agreed with Accountant General Heather Jacobs-Matthews that government's fixed assets would change the picture for the 9 4/95 government accounts from the previous year, because the balance sheets would then include the fixed assets of the government.

He said, "In terms of the overall government balance sheet, the statement is incomplete in that in the 9 3/94 consolidated fund report, the government's fixed assets are listed as one dollar.

"While in the 199 4/95 report, we will be showing the liabilities associated with pensions funds on the balance sheet as opposed to in the notes, there will also be added to that balance sheet the fixed assets of government.

"Just the buildings alone are insured to a value of $600 million, and there are additional assets beyond that. So it would be insufficient to just say there will be liabilities like the pension funds. You would also have to include the assets that are not fully stated in earlier reports. That would improve the appearance of the balance sheet considerably.'' TAXES TAX