–as gov’t intensifies efforts to clear backlog, improve services for contributors

THERE has been a massive reduction in the number of outstanding claims at the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) over the past few months, as the organisation focuses its efforts on improving its services for contributors, according to Senior Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for finance, Dr. Ashni Singh.

Dr. Singh said this on Saturday on the sidelines of an outreach activity at the Giftland Mall that was organised by the NIS to meet with residents on the ground, and listen to their concerns in relation to any issues they may wish to address with the scheme.

“When the new Board was appointed in November last year, we had a stock of about 14,000 pending claims. We are down to about 3,000 or thereabouts, so we have managed to clear out quite a lot of the pending claims by resolving these,” the senior minister highlighted.

Addressing this significant amount of outstanding claims was identified as a priority for the current administration, since it was recognised that the issue was a source of great “frustration” for a number of citizens.

As a result, the Finance Minister related that the new administration of the body was tasked with rolling out more efficient services, and this has been yielding some successes. In fact, Dr. Singh highlighted that one specific issue that has been of particular concern was the challenge with the untimely processing of life certificates. On average, there were about 3,000 certificates that were not processed in a timely manner that would result in a pensioner receiving their pension late, or even dropping off the pensioners.

But, the Finance Minister said, “We have now reduced that to zero.”

That reduction, he explained, was a direct result of a new intervention employed by introducing WhatsApp video calls to have pensioners who live in Guyana and abroad verify their life certificates intermittently. Dr. Singh, however, said that the body has to continue its work to reduce the backlog of claims and resolve concerns, since there may be a large number of citizens who may not have even been able to register their complaints, much less get those matters resolved.

It is for this reason, Dr. Singh said, that President Dr. Irfaan Ali mandated him to implement a nationwide series of outreach events to make the NIS’s services more accessible to the people. These outreaches are being done at convenient locations, such as the Giftland Mall, to address a diverse range of complaints and concerns.

According to a recent press release from the Ministry of Finance, the matters to be dealt with at the outreaches include compliance certificates, contribution statements, registration & replacement of NIS cards, signing and submission of life certificates, submission of claims and benefits, and pension queries.

On Saturday, by about 13:00 hrs, it was reported that some 60 people had already been engaged on a myriad of concerns, and left very satisfied. Still, Dr. Singh said that the outreach efforts will continue until the “accumulated stock of issues” will have been reduced significantly.

Another outreach similar to the one held on Saturday at the Giftland Mall is scheduled for today at the car park at Parika in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) from 10:00 hrs to 16:00 hrs. Additional outreach locations and dates are expected to be announced later.