NIS may be a monster in plain sight

Aug 27, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – The NIS could be a monster hiding in the middle of the room.  It is a room with the clearest view.  But the NIS is still trying to make itself small, nonproblematic, and unthreatening.  The mystery is that it has succeeded.  Some circumstances have surfaced, which nudge in a certain direction: thousands of Guyanese could be impacted.  To keep matters calm, I will not say that they have been cheated. Misled, yes. Ran ragged and runaround, yes again.  But cheated, I hold off on that one momentarily.  Still, I am using what has come to me to approach two ministers: Dr. Vindhya Persaud of Human Services and Dr. Ashni Singh of money dancing to his song’s fame.

First, a Task Force should be set up at one of the two ministries to get a grip on a rash of holdups of veteran Guyanese workers by one NIS posse after another.  If the Task Force sounds too official or ominous, then the NIS Dispute Resolution Desk is fine. Not at the NIS, but at either Human Services or Finance.  One minister must find the time to care, a big deal in the PPP Government, and the other must find the money to pay (not such a priority for rank-and-file citizens).  Who is not seen as rank has been made to walk in an endless single file forever.  Or made to file up and down some NIS office, before being filed down to size, viz., they throw up their hands and give up in disgust. The NIS saves the day, and saves a few million.  It also saves a few employees who may have touched some stuff.  The AG (ah comin tuh he) gets to save a day for some later, bigger, sexier issue in court.

Second, to give an idea of what is being called the secret NIS iceberg, consider this.  Reports are that when some at NIS learn that an employer has gone out of business for a while, then some luckless claimants are also going down the tubes with that company.  Some fortunate former workers have been collecting what is due to them from the NIS.  There are, however, some of their former colleagues who have gotten nowhere, are down on their luck. My concern (outrage, really) is that this has nothing to do with luck, but everything to do with what is fair, right, and just.  The PPP is about all three, so nobody should have a problem with me saying so; certainly not the two honorable names mentioned.  When matters distill to this unhappy level of a belly-up employer and some beaten down old-time workers, it should not terminate at what Guyanese call ‘provin offense.’  Whatever the hell that means.  A Guyanese who worked some combination of 15 years or more with different employers should not be left hanging like this; especially when they are vulnerable to the ravages of age, even made needy by circumstances.  No! I am not going to get started on the cost of living and the lower life form advocacies from big political kahunas about how much they have done to ameliorate the situation. The redline issue is that too many Guyanese workers have been shortchanged, then shafted, then rolled around in the dirt, and then given the boot.  The NIS version of that is short and sweet: no proof, no pay.  No employer printout, no NIS pension.  Goodbye and get lost.  When there are still Guyanese like me around, nobody gets lost.  They get in the face of the NIS first. Then they get in the face of the president, both the first and second ones. I trust that the PM doesn’t feel slighted.  Today, I manage myself and deal with their proxies.

Third, I am now lumping two issues under one tent.  Departed workers who may have qualified can collect pensions due to them wherever they end up, which is a boon for the NIS.  Part B involves those who departed for foreign shores.  Considering Guyana’s nonstop migratory trajectory, NIS should be in the black for benefits saved.  It takes a cheapskate Guyanese, one who has done well in America or Canada, to look to Guyana and its hangdog NIS to hand over what belongs in this their silver years.  Notwithstanding the convention where the contributions of current employees pay for prior ones, the pool from past contributions should have been at a healthy watermark.  Of course, this is without recasting the gaze from the NIS in Brickdam to that bridge over the Berbice River.  Since that involves some PPP family nakedness, I think decency and courtesy should be observed.  The man formerly in the Maldives (how does any true blue Guyanese end up there?) may not care.  But the lady minister is too much of a holy woman for me to be the upstart that I can normally be and spoil these proceedings.

The penultimate (next-to-last) point is that the Holy Guyanese Axis of the NIS, the PPP Government, and the Ali-Jagdeo duet may comfort themselves that the 24–48-hour syndrome will take hold.  To wit, this issue that so negatively affects many Guyanese will disappear off the radar in the same amount of time.  Fat chance!  Fuhgeddaboudit!  Message delivered.

Last, the giveaway was when the Guyana Government went on the offense by appealing the judge’s ruling.  No, Mr. AG; the judge did not err.  Talk to Guyanese straight, Mr. AG.  If that ruling is allowed to go through, the whole koker cud bruk dunk with the NIS flooded up to its baldhead with claims.  See how smart I am!  It is why Dr. AK Singh features so sweetly in this writing.  He either shoots up Guyanese workers; or he can show how much hectares for them, wounded and bleeding as they are.  AG Nandlall has a similar choice.  By the way, is this man’s name really Lall.  I have never known one that floats around so much to get what he wants.  Not even Lal Bahadur Shastri and look what the Russians did to him in Tashkent.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• GHK Lall, Guyanese, Ministries, NIS, Task Force

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