Local Gov’t Commission orders City Hall to pay over $200M in debt to NIS

The Local Government Commission (LCG) has written to the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) ordering that they begin payment of an outstanding $218, 416, 918 owed in employee’s remittance to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS).

Town Clerk (ag), Sherry Jerrick notified the Council on Tuesday at a statutory meeting about the correspondence she received from the Commission on August 9; the Commission had sent the letter since July 31.

The NIS wrote to the Commission on July 24 stating the failure of local government agencies who did not pay employees remittance, inclusive of City Hall.

Jerrick said the Commission is asking for this issue be dealt with urgently by the Council and failure to do will result in employees not receiving their benefits.

The Commission, in the letter, stated that it is the statutory obligation of M&CC to pay current contributions on behalf of their employees.

The Commission instructed M&CC to submit to NIS a payment plan of the outstanding remittance in order to be able to calculate the total debt owed and further, formulate a settlement of the debts on or before August 12, 2019.

The M&CC is also required to provide the Commission with a copy of all documents submitted to NIS and also provide the Commission with a monthly status update with regards to M&CC debt and a copy of monthly remittance of employees NIS deductions.

Meanwhile, the Town Clerk said City Hall is currently making payments for this year and the debt owed to NIS was accumulated from previous years.