By Christopher Ram & Associates – August 16, 2024
Following concerns expressed about the reliability of the records of the NIS and the mounting number of complaints against the body, the Government announced several initiatives to clear the backlog while Budget Speech 2024 claimed that the Government will offer eligible persons with between 700 and 749 contributions a one-off grant.
Properly understood, the one-off grant is nothing more than the current legal framework provides. It has not addressed an outdated, harsh and unfair arrangement. In the Speech, the Minister also referred to the 14,000 claims outstanding at August 2020 which had been resolved. Our experience tells a less positive story. Here are a few examples.
You will recall that we met in November 2023, after the Court had ruled that the National Insurance Scheme pay an NIS pension to a 73-year-old former employee of Toolsie Persaud Limited. Apparently, under pressure from the Government, the NIS appealed the decision and on 26 January of this year, the Full Court of the High Court referred the matter back to the Trial Judge. The matter is still pending while Mr. Zainul is deprived of a modest pension for which he contributed for over decades. Mr. Zainul is with us again today.
The other person here with us today is Ms. Julia Clarke, aged sixty-eight who, according to the records of the NIS, has 739 contributions – eleven short of the 750 to qualify for an NIS pension. Ms. Clarke disputes the poorly kept records of the NIS, providing evidence that her employment with one employer alone, qualifies her for a pension and not a one-off grant. Like Mr. Zainul, Ms. Clarke submitted to the NIS copies of her pay slips.
Sadly, these are not isolated cases. We have been trying to help another person who worked with the Special Constabulary in the late seventies, but the Special Constabulary cannot locate records which they had once admitted to having. And of course, the poor man cannot find one person, let alone two, who can give a sworn statement that they worked together at the Constabulary some forty years ago. Like so many employers from the state interventionist era, the employers no longer exist.
As a final example, a case was also brought to our attention where persons willing to sign affidavits were scared out of doing so after being cautioned about their failing memories.
Notwithstanding the promises by the Administration, the letters in the press indicate a continuing high level of public dissatisfaction with the NIS, largely due to past inefficiencies and failures by both the NIS and employers, as its former General Manager Patrick R. Martinborough admitted in his book The NIS in Guyana – Its Conception, Development and Future.
Those associated with the NIS and its administration must recognise that the payment of a pension is less about insurance and more about social security while the receipt of a pension is often the difference between poverty and extreme poverty. The ‘floodgate’ argument used in the Zainul matter is unsupported by facts and completely ignores the real human cost to workers who have contributed for decades.
It is incumbent on the Administration to restore public confidence in the NIS by making it more transparent, accountable and responsive to members of the public generally and to contributors and claimants in particular. The conditions for long term benefits under the Scheme have not changed since the Scheme was established in 1969.
Insistence on strict, inflexible and outdated rules which seek to transfer the responsibility for the maintenance of records from the NIS to workers is unlawful, unreasonable, unjust and inhumane. After 55 years, it is more than time for the Government to commission a comprehensive review with a view to modernising the Scheme, providing adequate security and fairer outcomes.
The advent of oil has provided the Scheme with both a financial and actuarial windfall that allows for more generous benefits, and to address inequities. We call on the Administration to immediately publish its Annual Reports and Financial Statements for the years 2022 and 2023 and the long overdue Actuarial Report. It is ironic that the NIS, which holds contributors to strict standards and legal compliance, does not think that such standards apply to itself.
We implore the Government to Immediately withdraw its appeal against the court’s decision in the Zainul matter and to review cases like Julia Clarke’s in an enlightened, humane manner. We also call for the immediate implementation of a sliding scale or partial pension system for persons who have made more than 500 contributions, the equivalent of ten years.
The NIS is one issue that can be objectively and impartially addressed outside of political affiliations or legal technicalities. It is about our values as a society and our commitment to those who have worked hard for their entire productive lives. We cannot stand idly by while our fellow citizens, who have contributed so much, are left without support in their golden years.
I want to show my personal commitment to the cause by making a small token of goodwill to Ms. Clarke and Mr. Zainul by donating to each of them on an ongoing basis, the equivalent of an NIS Old Age Pension out of my NIS and Old Age Pension.
I will be happy to answer your questions.
Christopher Ram
16 August 2024