Residents of Annandale and surrounding East Coast Demerara communities yesterday had matters pertaining to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) dealt with.
According to the Department of Public Information (DPI), Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall SC spearheaded the exercise, in keeping with a directive from President Irfaan Ali.
DPI said that scores of residents had raised their concerns with President Ali during a recent visit to the East Coast at which time he issued the instruction for the area’s parliamentary representative to return.
“We have seen hundreds of persons so the outreach, I believe, has been very successful and we hope to do it on a continuous basis. Hopefully, we can replicate this countrywide because anywhere you go in this country, you meet persons with complaints of NIS or of an NIS nature. So, it is a countrywide national problem and we are beginning to address it,” Nandlall told DPI.
NIS General Manager, Holly Greaves said most of the issues residents raised related to missing NIS contributions, while others were seeking clarification on their pension rate and benefits offered by the Scheme.
“We have taken their details and NIS has a system in place to address these outstanding contributions. Actually, we are doing some data cleansing with some of our large employers like GuySuCo. We have started from Corriverton Estate coming down and definitely some of the queries that they have raised here will be addressed”, she told DPI.
The General Manager said that the data cleansing will help to clarify many of the matters since most of the information received by the NIS from employers was incorrect.
“What we are doing is speaking with the human resource persons from agencies to make sure that we have the correct name and NIS number for persons,” she said.
Meanwhile, residents commended the initiative. Pitamber Pandey said he turned 60 two years ago and had filed his claim at the NIS, but was told he could not benefit at the time.
“I was supposed to submit it two years ago, but now I come and clarify it and they said sure that I will get my payment… This is very good for people because people would come and get their issue clarified quickly… It is far better we can come here and sit and get it and you get to ask more questions and clarify all the issues,” he told DPI.
Radica Dedeokhran said she wanted to find out about the two per cent incentive to which she was entitled. The woman said she applied for the benefit two years ago and is yet to receive it. However, the engagement at the outreach was fruitful.
“They took good care of me. They told me to full a form and that they will check it out and get back to me… This is good because when you go there, they have you running about. So, when you come here, they will take care of you. You have no problem, you come and they look into your problem,” Dedeokhran said.
