Dear Editor,
Readers of SN would recall that for years I was trying to get a response from NIS on a personal matter. This week I received a response from the General Manager (ag) after I had a letter hand delivered. At least this time some action was taken and I would like to thank her, at the same time asking her to have her officers do the same.
Before I get to the substance permit me to raise a few other issues. That reply was mailed to me type-dated Dec 9 last year. NIS is involving itself in double standards. Over the years I have had NIS Life Certificates returned to me with the note that the handwritten dates do not match, not by the dates, but by the person who wrote/signed! Seems to me that NIS did not know of secretaries filling out forms (and typing letters) for their bosses to sign, except in house!
I also need to return to a recurring theme of mine for the Guyana Post Office to return to basics. That letter I received bears only the US post office bar code for zip address. In the days of franked mail, the regulations required the mail to be posted on the day it was franked. Using rubber stamps to indicate postage paid, and not date-stamping mail on receipt in the system does not allow for quality testing of service. It allows organisations like NIS, to say that the claim/mail was sent to the post office when it was not. Incidentally the PMG should tell NIS to cease calling their mail room ‘The Post Office.’ He has the legal right to so do.
Back to the case. I think we are all being conned. Those of us who fathom the thought that seems to have gone into setting up the laws and regulations of things like public officers’ pensions, wonder what the NIS Board does in terms of the NIS regulations and protecting their pensioners.
The GM tells me that NIS pensions are calculated using the contributions made in the last 3 years multiplied by using the highest average insurable earnings during the last 5 years worked before age 60, then adding a supplement of one per cent for each 50 contributions. That amount is further constrained by law to certain factors relating to the relevant wage. Confusing I am sure!
It is very evident here that the average person needs to be very vigilant to ensure that in their last working days, when they may be in the poorest of health, they make the most contributions! Is this what we slaved through our working lives for? We also need to make sure that our contribution record is accurate.
In my case the GM advises me that my total working contributions that she based my
pension on are 1091 contributions. Nonsense! I worked continuously with the Post Office and retired at the end of May 1991; I have papers to prove that, and I know that my NIS contributions were paid over. Any ordinary calculation will disprove this total in the circumstances. In addition at October 31, 1990 the NIS contribution record provided me, and in my possession, lists me, as having a total to the end of 1988 of 996 contributions, the last 10 years in Group 10. That list was almost accurate, taking the so called stagger years into account.
But to me it gets scarier. According to the GM whereas my wife gets her calculation based upon her last three years contributions of 52 weeks each, mine is different. The GM tells me that my last three years are as follows: Feb 88 to Feb 89 a total of 32 contributions; the next two years ending Feb 1991 were 39 and 17 respectively, making my grand total calculated at 88 contributions. Nonsense! I was at work fully those three years, same place! NIS can prove that I never obtained sickness or disability or any other such benefits.
Making the correct calculations may not change my rate of pension taking “relevant wage” and such stuff that the Board should look at into account and where the regulations should be amended, but the concept of fairness still applies.
I shudder to think of the implications of this for so many other persons who may be denied their benefits through poor record-keeping, especially where they may not be in a position to get a hearing, and even if they do, at what monetary, time and stress cost? And if not, to whom do they turn?
Scarier and scarier!
I am addressing the GM directly on appeal.
Yours faithfully,
LA Camacho
