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NIS – A Future Beckons

Mar 31, 2015 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Our National Insurance Scheme was established by legislation of 1969. It was one of the earliest, if not the first, institution of its kind in the Caribbean. The principal catchment area at the time was the public service, with the Government being the (exemplary) employer. A collaborative private sector dutifully played its part in laying a solid foundation.
After more than four decades the promise of unemployment benefits remains unfulfilled, however. Indeed one hears of too many hardships in accessing legitimate employment benefits.
But this is only one sample of a depreciated service that not only is bereft of its legitimate supply of contributions by myriads of employees, with GuySuCo being outstanding; but, as often remarked, the Agency has not upgraded its record maintenance with the appropriate technology.
This defect however does not justify the number of employers who refrain from complying with the law – not only denying the NIS from its just revenues, but more critically, restricting benefits legally due to employees from whom contributions are deductible, and if deducted are not subscribed. In such an environment women are particularly vulnerable.
The observant is left to wonder how, in the face of expanding employment the Scheme’s revenues appear to be shrinking. Part of the answer must be that the management is not proactive enough in demanding the pound of flesh due. In some cases one suspects it feels restrained from doing so, and continues to support an unproductive enterprise.
In the absence of the initiative expected from employers the Barbados NIS, run by a highly qualified and independent team, including resident legal advisors, mounted a website some ten or more years ago which invites accessibility by prospective as well as actual employees, who would complete the information on which the Agency can act to induce the relevant employer to conform to the requirements of the law.
It is a model that makes eminent commonsense in our local circumstances and Guyana’s NIS should be urged to emulate this proactive thrust of its Barbadian counterpart. With the spate of new, and expanding investors, local and foreign, including several malls, the mining sector, the hospitality and communication sectors, and others, the situation is rife with opportunity for the NIS to explore these markets, using the right approaches, and the relevant technologies to save not only itself but to ensure that legions of women can access maternity benefits; and that the elderly will qualify for pension, from better sensitised employers.
Incidentally those who are described as stakeholders would by now have forgotten the generous donor-funded project which was specifically to address this lapse. It was intended to set up electronic interconnectivity between GO-Invest as an entrée to investors, GRA who would provide concessions; the Deeds Registry where the companies would be registered; and finally the NIS who would be apprised of the employer and the employee population of prospective contributors.
Despite the human and material resources poured into this project all that it has produced is flatulence.
Back home on the range there is a degree of uncertainty about the status of ‘contracted employees’ who logically should be paying into the NIS both employer and employee contributions. With some four thousand of such ‘contractors’ in the public sector, this is a market which invites investigation, particularly since those who are employed on donor-funded projects are not subject to deductible taxes.
E.B. John

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