NIS benefit complaints climb to over 1000 annually - Report

NIS benefit complaints climb to over 1000 annually – Report

Dec 02, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – The National Insurance Scheme (NIS) receives over 1000 complaints annually from beneficiaries, a 2020 report tabled in the National Assembly on Wednesday said.

The report, said that over 1000 complaints are presented to the Appeal Tribunal for processing each year.

Provision was made for the establishment of the Appeals Tribunal under Sections 60, 61 and 62 of the National Insurance Act Chapter 32:01 for the purpose of receiving, processing, hearing and determining appeals from persons who are not satisfied with any decision of the National Insurance Board.

The National Insurance Scheme’s (NIS), headquarters on Brickdam, Georgetown

The complaints are related to claims for benefits and/or other matters under the said body and are not under the control of the National Insurance Board or any other state agency or department of Government.

The Tribunal operates with complete independence and is funded by monies approved by Parliament through the Appropriation Act.

For the year 2000, the document said there were 2,432 complaints were lodged before the appeal tribunal. Of this total, 1603 complaints were brought forward from the previous year.

Of the complaints for appeal, Old Age Benefit accounted for approximately 67 percent, Sickness Benefit accounted for approximately 25 percent, and Survivors Benefit accounted for approximately 4 percent and Maternity Benefit approximately 3 percent injury, funeral, invalidity and disablement benefits accounted for the remaining 1 percent.

The report said that the appeal tribunal adjudicated on 68 of the complaints submitted, of which five were allowed, 22 were disallowed and 41 were adjourned. Additionally, the General Manager reviewed and allowed 510 appeals

At the end of the year, the report said there were at least 1,837 appeals outstanding.

The report is being released even as the new Board of Directors of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) announced efforts to tackle a backlog and resolve issues related to the claims of citizens.

So far, the 11,000 claims from citizens have been resolved and efforts are underway to resolve the outstanding claims.

Senior Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, had announced that outreaches are part of the government’s efforts to address a large stock of inherited challenges with the NIS.

He said, “When we came into government, we recognized this is an issue that required very urgent attention.”

Illustrating the urgent attention needed, he said, was the thousands of outstanding claims which have been a cause for frustrations for citizens who contribute to the insurance scheme. And as such, he said the body has been zeroing in on these unresolved claims to reduce the backlog.

Importantly, too, he said that there has been a significant challenge with pensioners’ life certificates not being processed in a timely manner. These life certificates enable pensioners to receive their pension sums from NIS by proving that they have not died.

“If you submit your life certificate and it’s not processed in a timely manner, you would be unable to get your pension and you might even drop out of the pension roll. On average in each pension cycle, you would have about 3,000 life certificates that were not processed in a timely manner and this would result in a pensioner paying their pension late or a pension dropping off the pensioner’s roll,” he lamented.

But, with concerted effort placed on eliminating such challenges, Dr. Singh said that the numbers can be reduced significantly.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News