PEOPLE’S Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo has said that those individuals who do not qualify for a National Insurance Scheme (NIS) pension will benefit from a lump-sum payment in two months.

He made this announcement during a press conference at Freedom House at Thursday.

Dr. Jagdeo explained: “NIS contributors between 500 contributions and 749 who didn’t qualify to get a pension, and this is from the 1970s all the way to now, they will now get a cheque in two months, and it will be a substantial sum of money. They will get back some of the contribution that they gave to NIS that they didn’t get all these years because they didn’t qualify for a pension.”

In this year’s budget, $10 billion has been allocated to execute this initiative.

The General Secretary also spoke about how the government is working to aid those with issues with NIS.

Already, he said nearly 10,000 persons have been helped.

During his engagements in Berbice on Saturday, persons spoke about issues with NIS and Dr. Jagdeo stated that to aid these persons and others, Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance and the Public Service, Dr Ashni Singh will go to the NIS office with his staff and work with them.

He further said that the government is always focused on aiding the people of Guyana and citizens conversing with them help achieve this goal.

“We encourage that. It helps us to solve problems, because we’re the only party that will actually come up with a solution, none of them would work on that,” the General Secretary said.
For many years, those who did not make the minimum 750 contributions did not benefit from a NIS pension.

In Guyana, insured people who have turned 60 are eligible to receive a NIS pension. An NIS-insured individual must have made or received credit for a minimum of 750 contributions in order to be eligible.