The strengthening and enforcement of penalties for late payment and non-payment of NIS contributions and the introduction of new legal measures to punish transgressors including the garnisheeing of the income and assets of non-compliant employers are among the matters on which the Eight Actuarial Review have commented.
These are by no means the only areas of deficiency that have placed the NIS is its present quandary. They are, however, a microcosm of the wider problem on indifference and neglect that are, in large measure, responsible for the scheme’s crisis.
Both the government and the private sector have made public comments in the wake of the recent actuarial assessment of the condition of the NIS, though neither, it seems, is prepared to acknowledge its own considerable role in causing the scheme to arrive at its present dismal juncture, though, in the area of employer delinquency, particularly, their culpability is clear.
With due regard to the recently circulated Private Sector Commission (PSC) position paper on the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) the missive resembles a feeble attempt to appear concerned long after the damage has been done. Since, if the truth be told, the private sector and the PSC had more than ample previous opportunity to sound their voices both on the issue of employer delinquency and on the related issue of government’s seemingly profound indifference to the problem. Where, for example, was the private sector when this newspaper, among other sections of the media, was commenting on issues of employer delinquency, corruption-driven ‘doctored’ NIS compliances acquired by delinquent private sector businesses for the purpose of tendering for state contracts and a court system so pedestrian in punishing the delinquents that many of them were able to go into liquidation before justice could be done. Not once, as far as this newspaper recalls, did the PSC sound its voice to admonish those delinquents who were incrementally crippling the scheme.
The case for the government’s culpability in the NIS crisis is even more compelling. It is altogether relevant to state, in the first instance, that the continual weakening of the NIS has taken place under the direct watch of a senior and influential member of the political administration, to wit, Cabinet Secre-tary Dr Roger Luncheon so that the government can hardly pretend that it was not being kept abreast of the scheme’s mounting problems.
In the matter of employer delinquency, the government – again in spite of excessive prompting from sections of the media – appeared disinterested in the problems of the scheme. Certainly, there were things that could have been done by the government to rein in the rogue employers including sending clear messages that the government did not find favour with the delinquents, facilitating the courts in the matter of expediting the cases involving delinquent business houses, reading the ‘riot act’ on internal corruption within the NIS that facilitated bogus compliances and, where necessary, terminating state contracts with private sector entities that were seriously delinquent. In fact, firms, some of which have been named by this newspaper, were allowed to retain state contracts, some of them lucrative ones despite the fact that the government would have known that some of these were tens of millions of dollars adrift in the payment of their employee dues. It was only after – a few years ago – the circumstance of bogus compliances reached the proportions of a scandal that the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board took a decision to collaborate with the NIS to exercise greater scrutiny over compliances being submitted with tenders for state contracts. By then, of course, the regime of circumventing official procedures to acquire (both NIS and revenue tax) compliances had become so well-entrenched that the Tender Administra-tion and the NIS were compelled to put mechanisms of a near forensic nature in place to monitor possible illegal compliances.
Two points should be made at this juncture. Firstly, employer delinquency in remitting contributions to the scheme is only a single facet of the problems facing it. Secondly, little will be resolved by simply reminding those who contributed to placing the NIS in the dilemma that it faces today of their culpability. We believe, however, that even at this stage, both the political administration and the private sector can do a great deal more than they are doing at this time.
The PSC must give a measure of practical expression to what it says is its deep concern “with the state of affairs in the NIS as laid out in the Eight Actuarial Report of the Scheme” by calling directly on known delinquents in the private sector to honour their obligations to the scheme and to their employees. It must either do so or cease seeking to create the impression that it wants to be part of the solution to the NIS crisis.
For its part, the government must concede its protracted negligence and inefficiency in aspects of the management of the scheme after which it must act to recover outstanding employee contributions since many of the delinquent employers are still out there. After that it might wish to consider taking seriously the suggestion that it really ought not to – at least without any suitable counterweight – be responsible for administering the critical savings of a significant portion of working people. It is entirely conceivable that public confidence and trust in the NIS as well as its substantive fortunes could be significantly enhanced if the chairmanship of the board is removed from the hands of a high-profile political functionary and placed in the hands of a professional with no known direct political affiliation.
