Following reports that the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) recently decided to not honour claims for sickness or accident benefits made by sugar workers, the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU) yesterday called on the entity to rescind the decision.
GAWU said that the NIS is acting in violation of the legislation governing the social security agency’s operations.
In a press statement yesterday, GAWU said that it has learned from its members that claims made were not being processed for payments. GAWU, along with the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE), wrote to NIS General Manager Holly Greaves on May 22 but to date they are still awaiting a response.
Stabroek News understands that a memorandum was recently circulated to NIS offices advising that payments not be made for claims by sugar workers from January 2020.
Despite this, some sugar workers were still able to access payments from claims made during the year before the notice was issued.
“The Union understands that the NIS stance takes account of the GuySuCo’s (Guyana Sugar Corporation) indebtedness to the Scheme. The Union, as part of its services, makes representation to the NIS, through its local and central offices, regarding outstanding claims of workers, among other things,” GAWU said in its statement yesterday.
Stabroek News yesterday reached out to Dianne Lewis Baxter, the NIS Public Relations Officer but calls went unanswered.
Audreyanna Thomas, GuySuCo’s Corporate Communications Manager, yesterday told Stabroek News that she was not aware of the issue and indicated she will have to make some checks.
GAWU said that the NIS decision is in violation of its governing act and by law they are obligated to honour all claims made by claimants even if employers have not remitted payments.
“The NIS Act at Section 17 (1) (c) states:- “For treating, for the purposes of any right to benefit, Contributions payable by an Employer on behalf of an Insured person, but not paid as paid, where the failure to pay is shown not to have been with consent or connivance of or attributable to any negligence on the part of such person…” the union quoted.
What the relevant section mandates is that a contributor must not be denied benefits on the non-payment of their contribution once they are not involved in any schemes aimed at defrauding the Scheme, the union argued. It emphasised that workers are undoubtedly not involved in any fraudulent intrigues and their contributions to the NIS are evidenced by their pay slips which indicate deductions were made from their wages and salaries.
GAWU argued further that the NIS has acted contrary to its own statues and by doing so “has failed in its obligation to provide social protection to the thousands of sugar workers. The decision by the NIS will also affect the contributions of sugar workers as these, in all likelihood, are not being credited to their records. For workers nearing pensionable age, this could be detrimental, as it can well deny them their rightful pension or even a pension at all.”
“Our Union, in the meantime, continued to follow up matters with the NIS when it was informed by an official of the Scheme, a few days ago, that a decision was taken to only honour claims made up to December 31, 2019,” GAWU said.
The union called on NIS to honour claims made by workers as they have anticipated “receiving benefits from the Scheme having been unable to work, sometimes for long periods, arising from sickness or accident.”
The NIS and GuySuCo should work out the corporation’s indebtedness but workers should not be unfairly penalised, the union concluded.
