NIS expenditure outstrips revenue for 2016

Dec 18, 2016 News

By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
The National Insurance Scheme (NIS) has found itself in a tight position spending more than it is actually receiving.
The Scheme’s General Manager, Holly Greaves, detailed the performance of the Scheme in 2016.
She said that as at November 30, last, a brief examination of the income and expenditure figures show that NIS income from contributions collected was $17.3 B. Current expenditure over the same period amounted to about $17.5 B and capital expenditure stood at $34 M. Therefore, a deficit of $238.1M was recorded as at the end of November.
Despite this, Greaves said that the latest forecast of the scheme’s financial operations for 2016 suggests that NIS will collect a further $2.2B in revenue during this month. This will make a significant difference. If this projected figure materializes, NIS will surpass its revenue target by approximately $1.8 B. Greaves said that this projected figure is expected mainly because NIS has been “aggressively” pursuing delinquent contributors.
Greaves told the media that NIS is expected to expend a further $1.7B in December taking the total expenditure for the year to $19.2 B. The Manager said that the projected expenditure includes pension payment of $14.5B for 47,372 pensioners.

Achievements
Greaves boasted that NIS has benefitted from a number of initiatives under the guidance of the new Board of Directors which she said has directly enhanced the effectiveness of the organization’s information technology framework.
The General Manager said that information dissemination through Facebook page has been beneficial. She said that the scheme has been able to provide information to large number of younger contributors. She also spoke about the benefit of a better website. Greaves said that the contribution checking system has attracted over 5,515 registered users. Of that number NIS was able to process 4,493 of the applications.
She said that of the 611 queries submitted, NIS has been able to resolve 494.
Greaves said that NIS also started an online submission of electronic schedule which currently benefits 40 employers who do regular submissions via website. She said that this system will become fully operational in 2017.

Challenges
Greaves said that an assessment of the current business and operating environment in 2016 revealed that there are other key issues that have an impact on the scheme’s income and operation. There is also the NIS inability to adequately capture the self-employed population. This resulted in shortage of budgetary target by over 395M.
Other challenges faced by the scheme include the development of an informal workforce that is not complying with the national insurance regulation and an increase in the practice of some employers to deem workers under their supervision and control as self-employed rather than employees.