Dear Editor,
NIS was introduced (Sept. 1969) to offer social protection to the poor and vulnerable worker and (April 1971) self-employed person (SEP).
As a consequence, policies and initiatives made at NIS should be congruent with the regulations and be of the highest priority to make social security accessible to the poor.
Regulations have been made to deprecate the practice of trying to obtain decisions from the courts by establishing statutory bodies to wit, GM, Appeals Tribunal, Commissioner and the National Insurance Board (NIB) to hear complaints and questions from aggrieved customers.
The specific intent of these bodies is to avoid the poor and vulnerable worker and SEP having to face undue legal and financial hardship in the pursuit of social security and social justice.
However, managerial advisories now being made, appear not to be carefully and legally crafted to safeguard this concept of social security. These advisories reek of administrative overreach as they seek to subordinate the legislative intent of regulations.
The framers gave the NIB authority to administer estates (unpaid benefits) without the grant of letters of Administration; this is on the death of a person who has made a claim for benefit or is entitled to benefit.
A managerial advisory made sometime in 2017 or thereabout, takes away this authority from the NIB as it demands an application for an unpaid benefit shall only be entertained if it is submitted with a letter of Administration where the deceased left no will.
In February 2021, the National Assembly passed a Bill to widen administration of Estates of deceased persons from $1,000 to $750,000, where no will has been left.
In light of this amendment to the Deceased Persons Estates’ Administration Act, it is enquired if the NIS will withdraw its regressive and unlawful advice with respect to unpaid benefits and go back to the procedure that obtained before so that unpaid benefit will once again be accessible to the poor?
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address supplied)
