OFFICIALS TRYING TO FIX ERRORS AT NIS DATING BACK TO 2008
By Emmanuel Joseph
The chairman of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) Leslie Haynes, KC has admitted that records at the social security agency are “a total mess” and efforts were being made to correct errors that go back as far as 15 years.
“I wouldn’t really worry about the National Insurance Fund, you know. What I would really worry about, really, is the operational aspect of the National Insurance,” he declared during an interview with Barbados TODAY.
Haynes noted that up to about two years ago, the NIS had not submitted audited accounts since 2008. Accounts for 2008 to 2014 have since been submitted to the Auditor-General.
“And we are working now on 2015 to 2017, and then we will work on 2018 to bring it up to date. But you have to ask yourself why the National Insurance was not in a position to submit audited accounts?”
“And the answer to that would be…the truth about it is that the whole computer system and the records in the National Insurance are in a mess…. It is a total, absolute mess,” the senior attorney revealed.
However, he pointed out that since the responsibility for social security was moved to the Ministry of Labour, greater attention was being paid to addressing the operational challenges facing the NIS.
“The Minister of Labour is paying attention to the National Insurance…his entire ministry, from PS [permanent secretary] down, everybody now pays attention to National Insurance,” Haynes noted.
“We have all of these operational matters [to deal with]….I can’t remember the figure, but we have thousands of claims in backlog that we need to bring up to date. We were bringing those claims down…. We had brought down those claims – I think from 8 000 or 12 000 or something like that – to about 6 000 before COVID hit. When COVID hit, as you know, everything came to a standstill and we had to pay attention to everybody who was out of work. So the backlog of claims has again increased and we have to work on those.”
Haynes stressed that significant effort was being given to “trying to fix all of these things”.
“We need a system that works; that’s what we have been working on, but you cannot fix everything one time. It is a question of identifying priorities and saying we will do A, B and C before we do G, H and K,” the NIS chairman explained.
“It’s a fight that we have. It’s not a battle that can be won in a day, especially because we are looking to correct . . . all the errors that have been committed since 2008 to 2018/2019. It takes time. It is like peeling an onion – every time you pull a layer at the National Insurance, there is another layer to pull.”
Haynes also expressed concern about issues being swept under the proverbial carpet at NIS and not being taken to the NIS Board.
Giving an example, he said: “Take the Accra [Beach Hotel] workers during COVID…. They didn’t get severance payments for a long time. You wake up in the morning and nobody brings that to you because there was a culture at the National Insurance – I don’t want to say the whole civil service – where you put things under the table and problems are not brought to the board,” Haynes asserted.
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