National Insurance Scheme (NIS) Chairman Ramesh Persaud yesterday declined to comment on a demand by civil society activist Christopher Ram and 10 trade unions for the National Insurance Board (NIB) to account for alleged pension underpayments that could amount to $5 billion.
Persaud told Kiskadee Watch that he had no comment on the matter at the moment when contacted about the allegations and a letter sent to the NIB by Ram on October 1.
Ram, acting on what he said were complaints received from pensioners, is calling on the NIB to comply with Regulation 4(b) of the NIS Benefit Regulations and pay arrears allegedly owed to minimum-rate old-age pensioners.
The regulation was amended in 2015 to increase the statutory minimum old-age pension from 40 per cent to 50 per cent of the Public Service minimum wage.
According to Ram, the last year in which the requirement was met was 2020, when the Public Service minimum wage stood at $70,000 and the minimum NIS pension was $35,000. He contends that although the Public Service minimum wage has increased several times since then, the NIS has failed to make corresponding adjustments to the minimum pension.
“On the published figures, pensioners on the minimum rate have therefore been paid below the statutory minimum for substantial periods from 2021 onwards,” Ram stated in his letter.
The letter points to the 2026 National Estimates, which place the Public Service minimum wage at $102,346. Fifty per cent of that amount is $51,173, while the published NIS minimum pension remains $43,075.
Ram therefore calculates a monthly shortfall of $8,098 for each minimum-rate pensioner, arguing that any subsequent increase in the minimum pension would not eliminate arrears that had already accrued. “Nor is the default cured by a later increase,” the letter contends, noting that where Public Service minimum-wage increases were made retroactive, the NIB must identify the legal basis for not adjusting the corresponding pension entitlement from the same effective date.
Ram has given the Board seven days to state its position on the alleged underpayments from 2021 to the present and to account for the amounts by which minimum-rate pensioners were allegedly paid below the statutory minimum. He is also calling on the Board to identify every affected pensioner, calculate the arrears and make payment.
If the NIB disputes liability, Ram wants it to state the precise legal basis on which it considers payments below the statutory minimum to have been lawful.
Discussion