Dear Editor,
Guyana today marks the first May Day under the APNU+AFC Government. It also marks the first joint Labour Day rally of the labour movement for decades. On this day I have one simple prayer: that the NIS will be cleansed of its callousness and insensitivity to those who have contributed to the NIS for years only to be told when they reach pensionable age that the records of the NIS do not reflect those contributions.
I am currently assisting two persons who applied for their NIS pension promptly on qualifying for their pensions on March 13, 2010 and April 14, 2011 respectively. Both persons maintained an excellent record of their employment and contributions and made their claims promptly. Yet, as long as six years after, one of them is still to receive his statutory benefits despite providing all kinds of information requested by the NIS and numerous visits to the NIS.
Editor, there can be absolutely no just reason for these persons to be denied their just rights because of the failure of the NIS to pursue employers and to maintain proper records as the law requires them to. Ironically, some of the employers of both persons were state entities.
Record-keeping problems go way back but the NIS is a continuing entity and, difficult as it may seem, it is the duty of the current Board and management to fix the problems. Their inheritance of bad enforcement and recordkeeping may seem to them unfair, but measure that against the plight of contributors for whom the NIS pension is their lifeline.
The new Board was appointed nearly one year ago. They can no longer use the fault of the NIS to maintain records as the basis for delaying and denying statutory benefits to persons who contributed to the Scheme from their sometimes meagre earnings. Hopefully, labour which is adequately represented on the Board, will make this an issue at today’s rally.
Yours faithfully,
Christopher Ram
