NIS must issue regular statements to contributors
-Yankana
By Johann Earle
Stabroek News
November 24, 2003
The National Insurance Scheme (NIS) must begin issuing regular statements to contributors so as to end the confusion over contributions, says David Yankana.
Yankana, Executive Direc-tor of the Consultative Association of Guyanese Industry (CAGI) and a member of the NIS Appeals board says, "We have been saying that it is the duty of the NIS to give each contributor a statement of their contributions, because it is hard to find records from 30 years ago." He added that if this were done persons would be able to easily trace discrepancies months after they were discovered. This point was also made recently by the Sunday Stabroek Business Page contributor, Christopher Ram who cited the case of Grenada.
Yankana stated that in the United States, persons received statements twice per year from their Social Security and Welfare programmes. "Why can't we do [that] here? We only have 121,290 active registrants with the NIS, while the US has millions of people in their Social Security programmes." Yankana supported the idea recently expressed that, in addition to a yearly statement, persons should be given certificates on their achievement of 750 contributions which is the figure needed to receive pension upon turning 60.
Debra Carter, the NIS's Public Relations Officer, says that the organisation was hoping to be able to give persons a yearly record of their contributions starting in May.
Meanwhile, she said the responsibility for the remission of contributions was a shared one among the employer, employee and the scheme but it was the employer who would be prosecuted if that became necessary.
In an invited comment, General-Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Lincoln Lewis, told Stabroek News that the employee was responsible for making sure that his or her contributions were paid to the NIS.
He noted, however, that there was no law that he knew of which stated that the employer was compelled to show these records to employees. He said persons should have a right to see their personnel file in which would be included their NIS records.
Yankana concurred with this view, stating that as far as he was aware there was no such law.
Terry Thomas, the NIS Deputy General Manager for Operations had told Stabroek News in an earlier interview that employers were obligated by law to reveal records of their contributions and proof that those contributions were being remitted. Carter, in a letter to Stabroek News, stated that the law provided for employees to check with their employers.
But the section of the legislation Thomas showed Stabroek News states that the employee has the right to access his or her card for the purpose of affixing his or her name and address. Stabroek News found nothing else in the NIS law to back up the assertion that em-ployees have a right by law to check their records at the place of employment.
In a letter to Stabroek News, Carter said that in the case of employed persons, the employer had the responsibility of ensuring contributions were paid to the NIS.
Yankana, meanwhile, said that he had seen evidence of employers not complying and it was the responsibility of the NIS inspectors to ensure that they did comply or face the consequences.
He added that the self-employed and the voluntary contributors had to ensure that they paid their contributions. "As a member of the [NIS] Appeals Tribunal, I see late payments by members of these categories in an effort to claim benefits when [they fall sick]." He acknowledged that there were employers who colluded with their employees not to make the NIS deductions.
"Some people seek contract work," he added. He said there were also a number of workers in the sea defence sector, such as koker attendants, whose work was seasonal and because of that there was no record of contributions for some of them.
He also said because of the lack of funds, some public sector agencies collected money from their employees but did not pay them in to the NIS.
Yankana was adamant that the NIS had a duty to let people know the facts about the scheme and its benefits and this would help in reducing the number of claim denials.
Yankana said one of the difficulties was that people believed that the NIS pension "kicks in" at age 60 and they overlooked the fact that the benefits were contributory.
"They must know that they have to pay their contributions and expect that benefits must come from only their contributions," he said.
He pointed out that a contributor was entitled to a pension, but he or she must be 60 years old and must have had no less than 750 contributions over the period of his or her working life.
He noted too that persons were in the practice of not properly registering their birth, and this created problems when they approached the NIS for their pension without their birth certificates.