President Irfaan Ali has mandated the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) to establish a Special Secretariat to handle its 10,000-plus backlogged local cases as well as those that originate from in the Diaspora.
The President made clear in an announcement on Facebook Live on Friday that he was expecting a resolution to all queries by the end of the year.
In his Facebook Live message, Ali said, “… in the NIS system itself now, we have 10,000 open files which means that we have 10,000 files in which investigations are still going on, files that deal with appeals, claims, queries, investigations, tribunal matters, 10,000 files in total. Just about that we have in the system and this is nationwide. So, I have asked the General Manager of NIS to come up with a `projectized’ approach by Monday. We are going to develop a special secretariat `projectized’ format to bring to an end or to bring to a close these 10,000 files by the end of the year.”
Regarding the queries from within the Diaspora, the President asked that persons prepare the relevant documents immediately and send them to the Diaspora Unit within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “… In the Diaspora, we have (many) persons with outstanding issues…, so apart from the (local) files…, we have (just over 300 plus) diaspora files opened. The NIS team in November is going to do what we call a diaspora outreach – in New York, in Toronto. So, what we want is members of the diaspora to send to the Diaspora Unit, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, their issues in relation to NIS with all their supporting documentation. So, that it could be sent to the NIS now and they could start looking at the issues and advising you about your claims and objections, your queries or your investigations”, he said.
The NIS, with oversight from the Ministry of Finance, extends Social Insurance Coverage on a compulsory basis, to all persons between the ages of sixteen and sixty years who are engaged in insurable employment. Coverage is also extended on a voluntary basis, to persons who cease such employment before reaching age sixty. Employed persons outside this age range who are in insurable employment are also covered but for Industrial Benefits only. However, self-employed contributors are not covered by Industrial Benefits. According to the NIS, an employee’s contribution is 14% of their actual Wage/Salary from which 5.6% is deducted and the balance of 8.4% is paid for by the employer.
The NIS uses these contributions, which are usually collected at the start of each month, to pay a monthly pension to the contributor. This system, in many cases and for various reasons, does not work and sometimes causes a contributor to not receive their pensions following retirement and reaching their age of attainment. In this scenario, a contributor can file a complaint, after which the NIS conducts an investigation and a decision is made based on its outcome. In an instance where the outcome does not find favour with the affected contributor the next step is to file an appeal to the NIS tribunal. It has been argued that the tribunal has not functioned for long periods.
This system has for decades remained unchanged and now the Ali administration is confronting the very same issues. The President insists that these issues continue to reverberate across the country and, according to the President, it is now time to get the system fixed.
“As I have been going around the country, one of the areas of concern is the number of outstanding issues at the NIS. Over the past three years through the outreaches, we have been able to resolve more than 4,000 files. Also in the diaspora, we have many persons who come to outreaches and meetings to raise NIS issues,” Ali added.
