NIS must make these payments to Mr. Clarke’s widow

Jul 20, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
Reference to your news item of July 18th 2015 “NIS delays contributor’s benefits, man dies.”
1. It is most pleasing to see that your paper does take up the cases of persons pushed around by the authorities. Stay the course for it is an excellent public service;
2. In the current matter, a widow is dealing with her deceased husband’s estate, as well as matters relating to her as his survivor, but the ‘official-no-action-wall’ is all she is meeting;
3. In the current matter, Mr. Lennox Clarke made application in 2010 for his NIS pension, and in the process of verification of his eligibility, records had to be checked and rechecked, and in the final analysis, his verified contributions were 808, well over the required amount of 750;
4. So what is the problem now that pay up time has arrived? The answer is the ‘official-no-action-wall’. Just let him wait;
5. Unless the rules and regulations otherwise provide, Mr Lennox Clarke is entitled to be paid his pensions from the date of filing of the application, irrespective of the time NIS takes to verify the validity of the claim. To act otherwise puts an undue advantage in the hands of NIS to limit or restrict the qualified amount to be paid, in effect, making payment when the application is approved with such approval being at the pleasure of NIS. What poppycock!
6. Mr Lennox Clarke died four years after filing the application and not having received any payment of the pension due to him. Does the death absolve NIS of making any pension payment pursuant to the application made four years prior to death? Categorically NO!
In my opinion, the amount is now due to Mr. Lennox Clarke’s Estate.
What can the surviving widow do apart from approaching the Press and other Media?
I would think that first get a lawyer and secondly have a formal complaint be filed.
The one good thing that KN does in publishing matters like this, is to attract the attention of the PR people who jump into action and get work done on the matter at issue.
Makes you wonder how come they have to be jump-started to deal with on-going matters.
We have to live in hope.
Carl Veecock

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