NIS still to honour court’s ruling on late payment

Aug 12, 2020 News

The National Insurance Scheme (NIS) is yet to implement a Court decision months after a ruling was made on how the state-owned entity handles late payments from self-employed and other categories of working persons.
The decision rendered by Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George-Wiltshire on February 6, 2020 could affect thousands of persons who said they paid late to NIS with the expectation that they would have received their full pension but were rebuffed.
However, Attorney-At-Law for NIS, Randalyn Rowe, said that the agency only received the memo on the court judgment two months after it was handed down. Rowe explained that since then, the NIS Board has been studying the judgment and contemplating how best it can implement the regulations.
Additionally, she said Vishwa Persaud, Drupatie Waltoo and Orin John, the three persons who joined the litigation process as part of their bid to claim their full benefits from NIS, are yet to be paid.
The lawyer claimed that NIS is actively considering how to move forward with full disbursements to three beneficiaries. She said that the Board is set to meet with the lawyer for the parties soon. At the interim, the lawyer claimed that the beneficiaries have been receiving cash grants from the scheme.
Rowe had filed the case late last year on behalf of the entity. The lawyer had asked for the Court’s guidance on how to implement late payments for parties who want full benefits from NIS.
According to the Fixed Date Application (FDA), Rowe specifically wanted a determination of a question of law on late paid contributions and would have wanted an interpretation of the National Insurance and Social Security (Determination of Claims and Questions) Regulations.
Among other things, NIS wanted a declaration by the court that it acted in accordance with regulations when it disapproved the use of late paid subscriptions in the computation of old age benefit when a contributor has paid late contributors close to the age of 60 and thus for the sole purpose of qualifying for the old age benefit.
The NIS would have also wanted the court to weigh in instances of where negligence played a role in the contributions being paid late or scenarios where there was collusions with employers not to remit contributions to the scheme.
However, the Court in its decision in February said that NIS cannot accept late contributions and then refuse to pay the beneficiaries as it could mean double jeopardy for the contributor.
Rather, the Court noted there could be legitimate expectations by the contributor that he or she would receive the benefits (pension) once NIS accepts those late payments.

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