CABINET Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon yesterday said that Cabinet has rejected any suggestion of an extension to its December 31, 2014 deadline by which the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) must complete verification of its records that were recently made electronic.

Luncheon recalled at his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the President, in Georgetown that the verification exercise is all that is left as the 15 million outstanding contribution records have already been updated and uploaded electronically.

“In June, Cabinet had issued a deadline of December 31 by which the NIS would have converted all of its records of contributions made to the electronic system. The obvious purpose behind this Cabinet directive was to ensure contributors benefited from payments of these contributions.

“As it is right now, benefits are computed from the electronic database, and not from the totality of payments made. So if you have a portion of your contribution records off the electronic database, more often than not, unless great diligence is applied, it wouldn’t be used in computing benefits.

“This specific deficiency has brought the NIS into considerable disfavour with the general public, particularly with contributors when, specifically at the age of retirement, contributions are missing,” Luncheon remarked.

He said Cabinet has recognised that the scheme would be hard pressed to complete the verification exercise within the stipulated time, but is still not willing to consider an extension date. Cabinet is, nevertheless, resolved to make available all of the resources necessary for the successful completion of this mission, he said.

At his previous press conference, Luncheon had said that electronic storage provides for processing of benefits. “It is extremely difficult to process benefits on the basis of paper. The manual search for paper records to process benefits unquestionably has denied contributors, whether short-term or long-term; definitely has frustrated and contributed to the wealth of appeals — thousands of them — in the system, incubating, germinating.”

Luncheon said updating the electronic database should have been done a long time ago, and that this time around, diligence would be applied to ensure completion of this exercise in its entirety.

(By Telesha Ramnarine)