NIS benefits increased
Guyana Chronicle
February 20, 2007
HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon yesterday announced several increases in benefits for National Insurance Scheme (NIS) contributors and pensioners for the year 2007, which have been approved by the NIS Board of Directors.
“All pensioners as of December 31, 2006 will receive a 5% increase in pension. Also, from January 1, 2007, the minimum pension to be paid to Old Age and invalidity pensioners will be increased from $12,700 monthly to $13,335,” Luncheon told reporters at his regular post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the President Secretariat in Georgetown.
“Additionally, with effect from March 1, 2007, the Insurance Earning Ceiling would be increased for contributors from $99,312 to $104,278 monthly (and) for weekly paid workers the new ceiling would be $24,064.”
He also announced that with effect from March 1 this year, reimbursements for authorized overseas sickness medical care would be maximized at $1,042,780.
Luncheon, who has been Chairman of the NIS Board for the past decade, said these increases in benefits were approved in the wake of the 5% increase in wages and salaries granted to public servants retroactive to January 1, 2006.
He, meanwhile, lamented the unacceptably high level of arrears, and the fact that certain employers, over the years, have failed to remit contributions from employees and even their own contributions to the scheme.
“Indeed, we would have to accept that there was some amount of indolence by the Board of Directors and Management of NIS in the way in which this matter has been treated…,” Luncheon contended.
On this note, he said moves are being made with regards to planned public consultations on NIS reforms which should commence soon.
“We may have to examine options used by other schemes in the Caribbean and elsewhere to introduce more rectitude by the employers and for them to meet these statutory obligations.”
“We are in court for many of these cases but, as you well know, the wheels of justice - they don’t turn as quickly as we would like and therefore we may have to resort through the public consultations to (have) legislative changes.”
Luncheon noted that while previous efforts at publicizing, embarrassing and bringing the defaulters into the public eye had “helped a bit”, this has not helped much since a considerable amount of money is still outstanding. “I suspect that the public consultations will resort to measures to deal with these defaulters.”
He said the long and short of the matter is that many of the companies have entered into pay back arrangements with NIS “which have allowed them to continue in business, notwithstanding these large indebtedness”.
Asked to comment on whether the record for some NIS contributors for the period 1989 to 1998 has been rectified, Luncheon said he would hesitate to make “such an absolute pronouncement” but said a tremendous amount of capital has been invested in the committed efforts by the management of the scheme to addressing this issue.
He also noted that as the Chairman of NIS Board for more than a decade now, he must assume some responsibility for what has evolved over this time. “Although I am not 100% pleased, I am fairly well convinced that tremendous improvements have been made and the 1989 to 1998 database has been brought almost 100% into the National Insurance fixed database.”
He, however, alluded to some hurdles that have been hindering the process prior to, and even after 1998, that need to be rectified, particularly those regarding arrears and backlogs.
“…so we need to perhaps see this as a work in progress and satisfy ourselves that the deadline provided by the management for mid-2007, that all of the contribution records that are available would be inputted by then, and there will be a better handling of contribution information (and subsequently) the payments of benefits and pension to our contributors.”