Dear Editor,
The letter by D Gentle in SN’s issue of April 22 under the caption ‘When can pension vouchers be cashed when the payable date falls on a public holiday?’ was of great importance to NIS pensioners.
The debate however is that it is printed on the old age pension voucher that it covers the period from the 1st of the particular month to the 28th, 30th or 31st of that month. Why then does a pensioner have to wait many days to encash the voucher if the 1st of the month falls on a Tuesday or another day and not on the first Monday of the month of the voucher cover?
Another sore situation at NIS is that when a claim is submitted for the Old Age Pension (overseas), the NIS instructs that the claimant/agent return after three weeks to uplift the voucher, only to be turned away empty handed because the voucher is not ready. The question is how many days make an NIS three weeks? Twenty-one calendar days or twenty-one working days? Does this period commence at the time of the submission of the claim or at the beginning of the following week?
Yours faithfully,
A McKenzie
