Minister gives new date for digitising of Old Age Pension

Jan 04, 2017 News

-system to rely heavily on E-Governance project

In its quest to ensure efficiency, accountability and transparency in the distribution of Old Age

Former Minister of Social Protection, Ms. Volda Lawrence

Pension, the Ministry of Social Protection last year announced plans for the system to be digitised. The Ministry had spoken of plans to have that system become operational by this month.
The system is still in the making. In fact it may not be up and fully running until June. This is according to former Minister of Social Protection, Ms. Volda Lawrence, who disclosed that as part of the journey to digitising the payment of Old Age Pension “we have been working with an agency that has a module that we are looking at.”
But the Ministry cannot work in isolation to realise this digitisation goal. Minister Lawrence recently revealed that her Ministry is working with other agencies including the Accounting General’s Office and more importantly the Auditor General’s Office to ensure that the system is transparent and that there is accountability in whatever programmes are being used.
Once implemented the use of books for the payment of Old Age Pension at the various post offices is expected to become a thing of the past.
To achieve this, the system will be drawing support from the E-governance project. “We also have E-governance on board which is working with us and as you know the Guyana Post office Corporation falls within the ambit of the Minister of Telecommunications (Minister Cathy Hughes) and so they are working to ensure that the post offices are upgraded so that they can have the necessary IT (Information Technology) established within these entities across the length and breadth of Guyana so that we can begin to take the programme and test it there by the middle of June,” according to Minister Lawrence.
She disclosed that while the programme has been tested at the General Post Office situated in the Capital city, “we have not been able to do so at the other post offices. So we are waiting on Minister Cathy Hughes and we have every confidence that she will get the job done and we will be able to move that.”
Minister Lawrence in speaking of the digitisation plans gloated over the possibility that the nation’s elders eligible for Old Age Pension will no longer have to use books. Instead they will “just turn up with their identification cards and be able to be serviced.”
In so doing, she explained that “we can capture that data immediately when that transaction is made irrespective of where it is made.”
But according to information disseminated by the Social Protection Ministry last year, all Old Age Pensioners will require the new National Identification Cards to collect their Old Age Pension when the system becomes fully automated. The Ministry has requested that all Old Age Pensioners who do not have the nine digit identification cards issued in the last Registration Cycle by the Guyana Elections Commission, upgrade their National Identification Cards.
In recent years, there have been accusations that the Government’s old age pension scheme was laced with fraud, with many persons collecting under false pretence. With thousands of Guyanese living abroad, there have been reported cases of so-called ‘double dipping’.
The automated system is expected to be designed in such a way to prevent such fraudulent activities.
With the recent passage of the 2017 budget, Old Age pensioners are now eligible for a slightly augmented payment package. But according to Minister Lawrence this is in keeping with a campaign promise.
“Our mandate to the Guyanese populace, we said to them in our campaign that we will raise the old age pension to $20,000 we have five years to fulfil that promise and so I am very happy that as we speak that the old age pension will be raised from the January 1, 2017 to $19,000.
“So it is just $1,000 short of our promise and we have three years more to go,” the Social Protection Minister asserted.
Old Age pensioners were just last year eligible for just over $18,000.