Benefits for retrenched sugar workers secured at NIS

The National Insurance Scheme (NIS) says that the contributions for retrenched sugar workers are up to date.

General Manager, Holly Greaves told the media today that the payments were settled by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) before the assets were transferred to the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).

“GuySuCo have made right their outstanding payments except for a small amount of interest that is still owed to the NIS, so we have also been setting their [sugar workers] records in order,” the General Manager said.

She further explained that “since last year, we have launched a data cleansing activity with the estates for GuySuCo, we have started from Skeldon [estate] coming down –cleaning the data and making sure that we have all the persons on roll at GuySuCo, their data cleanse within NIS.”

Some of the persons laid off by the sugar corporation may be just a few years from receiving their benefits. The General Manager noted that there are ways that they can make those additional contributions.

“For the persons who use to work at GuySuCo, they can still continue contributing to NIS by using our voluntary contributory system. We have—persons if they go into another form of employment, they could also register as a self-employed person. But you can also register as a voluntary insured person and pay,” Greaves explained.

To begin the process of voluntary contributions, persons are required to visit the office where someone will guide them through the process, or, utilize the Live Chat which was launched on Thursday by the Insurance Scheme. The Live Chat provides instant response to queries on the agency’s website nis.gov.gy.

As it relates to the revenue being garnered by NIS, she acknowledged that the firing of the 4,000 workers will have a negative impact on the agency’s revenue collection.