Dear Editor,
My NIS no. is B2264943. I have made more than 800 contributions. I started contributing to the National Insurance Scheme from the inception when the exchange rate was GUY$1.25 to US$1 and my salary was $97 per month.
I was young, healthy and strong and never had need for any medical aid from NIS except for maternity benefits. We all made our contributions in good faith believing that we will be entitled to enjoy in return medical and other benefits when we got older and needed it. Not so. At the age of 58, eyes are failing, arthritis is acting up, teeth need fixing, your blood pressure is soaring, you may be diabetic or may even have a heart condition.
I enquired and NIS tells me that I am not entitled to receive even an aspirin because I did not have and did not receive medical treatment for any of these conditions when I was a contributor! And to be a recipient for NIS benefits now I would have had to suffer a condition when I was a contributor. But I was healthy then I argue. I need spectacles now. Not possible if you did not apply for any before.
And how dare one get arthritis now and expect to get a medical benefit? I should have had this ailment ever since I was young so that I will now have a history of treatment and be entitled to some benefit. The scheme was not set up for older folks to exploit NIS with their various ailments and diseases. If you have always had teeth and you have none now, too bad. Twenty years ago you should have started pulling them out, then you would have qualified for dental benefits.
But the crowning glory I find is the amount of pension that I will be receiving. Never mind that I was contributing at the highest level of middle management and the exchange rate was GUY$100 to US$1 when I resigned from public service, the actual dollar amount today is what counts and that is equivalent to less than the lowest paid employee contribution and therefore my pension must be at the barest minimum. This is so wrong and unfair for I was not contributing to NIS at the bottom of the ladder and I should not receive a mendicant pension.
Perhaps the actuarial studies did not expect us old timers to live to the ripe old age of 60 years and how dare they equate my contribution of $1 when the exchange rate was $1.25 and the minimum salary was $75 per month to the contribution of $1 now when the exchange rate is $200 and the minimum salary is more than $25,000 monthly in the public service. Is there no bright young lawyer who is willing to test this proposition in the courts? What about the trade union. Dues were deducted from my salary monthly.
I have noted in other countries that employees benefit from their National Schemes and that it was always intended to be so. Not here in Guyana. The NIS has exploited the Guyanese and benefits that should have accrued to workers are siphoned off to be lent to external agencies thereby depriving us of our deserving and correct pension and benefits. Who exactly benefits from NIS?
Yours faithfully,
Hema Persaud
Editor’s note
We are sending a copy of this letter to the National Insurance Scheme for any comments they may wish to make.
