Yesterday, Nathan Craig, a frail 80-year-old Linden man, barely able to stand, let alone walk, was brought into our office. Craig’s appeal for his pension was heard fourteen years after it was lodged in 2010. No sooner had he won, than the heartless NIS lodged an appeal to a non-existent Commissioner of National Insurance.
Here we have Mr. Craig, penniless and fragile, deprived of his rights by an NIS whose strategy is to wait pensioners out. His story is not dissimilar to Zainul’s, the carpenter whose success in court angered the NIS, the AG and the Government, all of whom have left him out to dry. Zainul is paying the price for his less than honest employer, the NIS and the AG’s chambers. Craig is paying the price for the failure of the President to perform the simple task of appointing the Commissioner of National Insurance and the refusal of the NIS to follow the law laid down in an earlier judgment of the Chief Justice.
The whole purpose of the NIS was to provide financial relief for the elderly through the contributions of the workers and their employers. The duty of the NIS was to oversee the employers and to maintain accurate records of contributions. Partly because of political control, poor management and its failure to carry out its statutory functions, the NIS has caused grief and suffering to probably tens of thousands of contributors, many of whom departed this world without justice.
For one thing: it is not currently for want of money. The NIS’ financial fortunes began to rise with the influx of highly paid persons in the expanding economy. The injection of the $10 Bn was like a bonus and could have been used to address many of the Scheme’s more fundamental problems. Instead, the staff of the NIS are bullying and blackmailing aggrieved persons into giving up their right to a pension in exchange for a one-off grant.
An ailing octogenarian (Craig) must now wait for the appointment of a Commissioner of National Insurance for the NIS appeal to be heard! Zainul, a septuagenarian, has to wait for the opportunity to climb those high court stairs again. And let us not forget Julia Clarke who may have to wait another six months for the NIS to respond to her lawyer’s letter.
That is the sad state of our NIS.
Thank you, President Ali.
Christopher Ram