Minister of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development, Senator Dr. Esther Byer-Suckoo says managing the National Insurance Scheme is not a simple task.
She told the Senate yesterday that the local social security system faces many challenges, including a drop in the contributions being paid into the scheme which she explained has also resulted in a decline in the surplus available for the National Insurance to invest both locally and abroad.
“What we invest at National Insurance is the surplus and when contributions are down it means obviously that your surplus would be less as well, so there has been less money to invest. One of the reasons for that is of course the fact that employment has been down for a period. The Unemployment Fund has actually dipped quite a bit because of the level of unemployment, and persons taking money out of that Fund. But what that also meant is that because unemployment was high, contributions were actually lower; fewer people working means less money coming in. So in the long-run we had less money to invest,” she told fellow senators.
Given the challenges, she said the National Insurance Department has been prudent in the management of the money within its care, and has had to invest more locally than it would normally do. But, she is confident that will not always be the case and will change “when these circumstances that we find ourselves in change”.
“What the National Insurance has decided it would do during this period is not just focus on the investments, which has been a big thing at National Insurance all these years… [They are] focusing on other very important things like cash flow management, where managing the contributions and arrears come in; as well as focusing on customer service, very important; and as more and more people look to National Insurance for support that customer service becomes very important,” she said.
Moreover, she stated that efforts are being made to improve the processing of claims coming into the Department. She admitted that there is quite a backlog in the processing of claims, especially the sickness benefit claims. Additionally, the Department is also working assiduously to reduce the backlog with respect to its financial statements.
In that regard, she revealed that officials of the Scheme are working with the Auditor General and an external firm to sort out the issues with the audited financials. She explained there were some issues with the financials dating back more than a decade which had to be addressed so as to deal with the ensuing years.
“Because 2004 took some time, then that of course had a domino effect on the other years. We gradually got through 2004, so we are now playing catch-up. I do believe we have statements in for 14, and 15 but we are still working to get everything completed so one day very soon we can come to the House and say here all of these are the statements you have been waiting on so long,” she stated. (JRT)
