(Kaieteur News) – Attorney for 81-year-old Nathan Craig and Shariff Zainul, Christopher Ram has put the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) on blast for rejecting pleas to help the two elderly men.
Ram previously highlighted that Craig and Zainul cases illustrate the difficulties faced by contributors who have spent years fighting for pensions they believe they are entitled to.
In a recent statement, Ram outlined that since the publication of his commentary on the NIS, letters were dispatched to the Scheme appealing for urgent and humane relief.
“NIS has cynically and flatly rejected both approaches. That response is difficult to reconcile with the very purpose of social security: to protect contributors when age, illness and incapacity leave them most vulnerable,” he added.
Ram highlighted that Zainul is seriously ill and substantially immobile. He said in Zainul’s case, it was proposed to the Scheme for an interim payment be made without prejudice to NIS’s legal position and fully creditable against whatever might ultimately be found due. “NIS therefore stood to lose nothing. Yet it refused and directed us to its external counsel, as though the decision were no longer in its hands. It is. Counsel acts on instructions,” Ram added.
As it relates to Craig, Ram outlined that Craig had succeeded before the Appeal Tribunal in October 2023 and NIS appealed five days later under Regulation 12(1) of the National Insurance and Social Security (Determination of Claims and Questions) Regulations and suspended payment.
Ram said the request to NIS for Craig required no concession from NIS. “We sought payment in accordance with the Tribunal’s award and the statutory scheme, subject only to any lawful basis for suspension. Almost three years later, NIS says its own appeal is still awaiting a hearing,” he added.
He underscored that in neither case was NIS being asked to surrender anything. Ram argued that in Zainul’s case, the payment would have been recoverable or creditable and in Craig’s case, the legal team did not ask for any favour, only what the law and the existing award provide and yet NIS chose refusal in both.
Ram pointed out that had it not been for years of administrative mismanagement, staggering incompetence and endless delay, both matters should have been resolved long ago.
He labelled NIS latest response as “callous”, especially in light that photographs of the present condition of both men were shown to the Scheme. “NIS is a social insurance institution. Yet even commercial insurers often show more humanity than NIS has shown these two men. The message conveyed by NIS is stark: we are not moved by your condition and circumstances; if you want relief, take us to court. That is an extraordinary posture for a social security institution dealing with elderly and seriously ill contributors,” Ram added.
Nathan Craig
Craig, of 204 Cedar Street, McKenzie, Linden, worked for Kaieteur Company Limited and later Linden Mining Enterprise Limited from 1990 to 2003. During that period, he made more than the 750 contributions required to qualify for an old-age pension.
According to Ram, NIS rejected his claim, prompting him to appeal on 29th September, 2010. The matter remained before the NIS Appeal Tribunal for 13 years before it was finally heard on 28th October, 2023. The Tribunal ruled in Craig’s favour.
Nathan Craig, 81, still awaits his NIS pension.
NIS wrote to Craig on 18th December, 2023, informing him that he had won the appeal. In the same letter, however, the Scheme said it was dissatisfied with the decision and would take the matter to the National Insurance Commissioner.
Ram said that since then, NIS has produced no decision cancelling the Tribunal’s ruling and has not paid Craig his pension. According to Ram, the only reason given by NIS is that some of Craig’s contributions were paid after he turned 60. Ram argues that the responsibility for making those payments rested with Craig’s employer and that the pensioner should not be made to bear the consequences. Craig, now 81, remains unpaid and, according to Ram, is forced to take on small manual jobs despite his age.
Shariff Zainul
Zainul’s case is similarly prolonged. Zainul worked and paid NIS contributions from 1969 to 2001 and turned 60 on 16th October, 2011. Ram said NIS initially recorded that Zainul had 374 contributions, then 426 and later 453, without explaining the changes. Instead of receiving a pension, Zainul was paid two one-off grants of $9,869 and $14,549.
A bed-ridden Shariff Zainul.
At the centre of his case are 354 disputed contributions which, according to the evidence presented, were deducted from his wages by Toolsie Persaud Ltd. but were not remitted to NIS. Zainul produced payslips, a letter from the company’s former Personnel Officer and sworn statements from two former co-workers whom NIS itself accepted had worked at the company.
NIS nevertheless rejected the evidence and relied on its own contribution records. Those records did not include 1994, despite NIS acknowledging that it had Zainul’s payslips for that year. Justice Damone Younge subsequently found the records to be wrong or incomplete. She also described NIS contribution records as having become notorious for being unreliable and raised concerns about employers’ failure to remit contributions at the expense of workers. She ordered NIS to pay Zainul’s pension from his 60th birthday.
NIS appealed, and on 26th January, 2024, the Full Court overturned that decision and sent the matter back for rehearing. Fifteen years after reaching pension age, Zainul still has no pension and, according to Ram, is now bedridden.
Source: Kaieteur News
