Dear Editor,
In reading the Stabroek News edition of Saturday Oct 17th, 09, I saw the letter under the heading `Mr. Ramdeen’s NIS claims were disallowed’, a reply by NIS Publicity and Public Relations Officer Dianne Lewis Baxter, in which she offered an explanation why Joel Ramdeen’s claims were disallowed. But I couldn’t remember reading the letter that Ramdeen had written on Oct 3rd, 09, so I went, found the papers and read the letter (in fact there were two such letters there with complaints against NIS). Now I am not the type to go looking for some letter/story that was passed, except in special cases, but what caught my attention and triggered me going back to this Ramdeen letter was NIS Regulation 23 and 8 that were quoted by the P.R.O to support her case.
Kindly allow me Editor to repeat them: Regulation 23:- “sickness benefits shall be payable only if the insured person, had been in and paid contributions for insurable employment during at least eight contribution weeks in the period of thirteen contribution weeks immediately preceding.
The contribution week in which the first day of the continuous period of incapacity for work occurred”.
Regulation 8:- “For the purpose of any right to sickness benefit or maternity benefit, a contribution paid after the due date shall, in determining whether the relevant contribution conditions are satisfied as respects to the number of contributions paid in respect of the period between entry into insurance and the day for which the benefit is claimed, be treated for the right to any such benefit in respect of any day before the date on which payment of the contribution is made, as not paid”. There!
Editor, if this is not complicated, meant to confuse and frustrate the layman/ordinary worker making him/her feel inept then tell me what is? Ordinary folks have got to struggle to make sense of this. What NIS is saying to you is go get yourself a lawyer. Did Ms. Dianne Lewis Baxter give herself a hug after finishing this letter, does she honestly believe that her response to Ramdeen’s letter has served to bring about a better understanding by the thousands of Ramdeens (workers) on how the NIS operates? I think not. She’s now got their heads in a whirl.
I’ve heard it said before “make words so simple that even the dull can understand”. And why shouldn’t it be?, it was with the ordinary working man in mind in the first place for which these regulations were made. Why can’t a worker, who needs to make an inquiry over monies that have been deducted from his/her wages for years, have matters explained in a simple/easy way? Would simple comprehensible language be seen as too demeaning not befitting the legal profession? Isn’t it somewhat odious that after making contributions for some 20-30 years one has to present documents all over to the very people who have been doing the deduction to prove their case so that benefits can be correctly computed? Something doesn’t smell right. Ramdeen who claims that all his contributions were paid said that when he applied for NIS he was instead sent a letter claiming the he owed $32,430 plus interest which the P.R.O admitted “were indeed paid but not in a timely manner”. Forget his misplaced letter, but why was he barred from seeing the NIS doctor? NIS comes over as being a callous, cold, mechanical equipment (institution) without a human face and long winding explanation/regulations which prevents people from having what is rightfully theirs.
One can almost feel the subtle irony even as the P.R.O advises that if the claimant wishes, “he has the right to appeal the decision of the National Insurance Scheme”, and is further given telephone numbers if he needs additional information.
We need to start looking at rewording some of these regulations-they weren’t cast in stone. Let all those rules/regulations that involve workers money be written in lucid language which can be comprehended without causing a headache and not having people going around in circles.
Yours faithfully,
Frank Fyffe
