Over several years now, many persons who have reached pensionable age have complained about difficulties experienced at the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) in relation to the processing of their applications for pension. They have either been made to run back and forth until their claims are processed or told that they don’t qualify for a pension – even though a good number of them do – and forced to accept a lump sum in lieu of their pension. The lump sum is far smaller than the monthly benefit they would have accrued after the age of 60.

Contributing to the problem is the disordered state of the NIS’ records as acknowledged by its Deputy Manager Terry Thomas in an interview which was reported in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek.

So after decades of hard work and making the requisite contributions to the NIS, some elderly persons looking forward to a monthly pension to tide them through these difficult times are in for a rude shock. Undoubtedly many persons are getting their pensions when they reach the age of eligibility – a combination of more complete records at the Scheme of their working lives and their ability to get service from the Scheme. However, it is those who are eligible and cannot succeed in getting their pensions who provide the litmus test for the Scheme.

For an organisation whose functions depend heavily on the quality of its records it is alarming to hear the admission that its paperwork is not in good order. Computerisation of the records is underway and the Scheme is promising that come May next year it would be in a good position to provide accurate data to all contributors who would like to know about their eligibility for pension. Such a development has been long promised by the NIS and those who subscribe to the Scheme eagerly await this new dispensation.

The burden that is being placed on those persons who are now becoming eligible for their hard-earned pension is unacceptable. They have been lulled into a false sense of security because of their lack of awareness of their rights and what is required of them. As a service organisation, the NIS has to be pro-active in ensuring that all of those who are eligible for pensions get them. It has to help these people clarify and discover these records rather than poker-facedly saying they don’t qualify, offering them a grant and showing them the door.

From as soon as possible – considering that it is operating with flawed records – the NIS should write all of its subscribers who are between the ages of 55-60 inviting them to go into its main or branch offices to begin clarifying their records and where necessary helping to reconstruct records that might have been lost. Where subscribers are adamant that they have the requisite number of contributions and more, the NIS should advise them on how to proceed in confirming this and should even write the employers on behalf of the pensioners to ascertain whether they had indeed been employed with the organisation during the stated period.

While all will agree that the NIS has a huge responsibility and workload in administering the affairs of the Scheme and paying out numerous classes of benefits together with pensions, it simply cannot allow persons who may well be eligible for pensions to walk away with only a grant.

Even though the NIS promises that from May contributors will be able to get updates on their contributions without a hassle, the Scheme would be well advised to formalise a system whereby certificates of eligibility are issued to subscribers on their attaining the amount of contributions required for a pension to be paid. For example, if at age 40 an office clerk has made the required number of payments, she should be provided with a certificate which she could present to the NIS on attaining the age of eligibility as proof that she should receive a pension. This would obviate the chaos that the office clerk could encounter when at age 60 – 20 years after she would have been eligible – she turns up at the NIS office only to be told that they have incomplete records or she doesn’t qualify. This would be particularly useful in cases where people stopped working after a while e.g., the office clerk may have decided not to return to the workplace so she could spend more time with her family. The Scheme in this instance would have had no record of contributions for the last 20 years even though the office clerk was eligible.

While it does provide the very useful NIS mail bag service where questions are answered in the newspapers, the NIS has to embark on a drive to educate contributors more comprehensively about how to go about securing their interests. For example, in relation to old age pensions, contributors should be advised on what to do to ensure that employers are paying over NIS deductions, what type of evidence should be gotten from a workplace after disengagement to substantiate the period of employment, what checks are necessary with the NIS itself to validate their records, how their pensions are computed, etc.

These steps if employed would go a long way towards ensuring that contributors get their money’s worth from the scheme.