NIS Consultant Predicts 'Drastic Changes'

By Julien Neaves, www.trinidadexpress.com

March 5, 2010

Trinidad and Tobago

National Insurance System (NIS) consultant Hubert Dolsingh has predicted ’drastic changes’ to the NIS, including an increase in the retirement age of 65 by two to three years. 

His prediction was ’on the basis that we are living too long and people are collecting pension for too long a period’, and there are more people retiring compared to a low birth rate. 

He was speaking recently at the ’Update on the National Insurance System’ forum at the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Commerce and Industry at Westmoorings. 

He also predicted that the 750 contributions needed to qualify for a pension -- the figure from the inception of NIS on April 10, 1972 -- would be increased to about 1,000. 

Dolsingh added that the NIS would have to give concessions to people who were unable to meet these increased contributions because of the age limit. 

He later told reporters that he read the last financial report of the National Insurance Board (NIB) for 2008, and he was ’certain they are going to revise the amount to qualify’. 

He also predicted that the new system would marry all State insurance schemes and there would no longer be a Senior Citizens Grant but one pension, and instead of rates there would be a percentage of the employee’s salary. 

’I can assure you that things are going to change,’ Dolsingh said. 

He said that the change would not be any time soon, as the political atmosphere was not currently conducive to asking people to pay more money in contributions. 

Dolsingh also spoke about maternity benefits and a common error by employers who believed they were supposed to pay one month full pay and two months half-pay. 

He said they actually should take the total NIS lumpsum amount of $9,272.51, subtract from three months pay and divide by three to pay the employee. 
’Do not pay more than that,’ he said. 

He gave the example of an employee making $5,000 a month, who would normally receive $10,000 if she got one month’s full pay and two months half-pay. 

He said the employer should actually pay $5,727.49 over three months, a difference of $4,272.51, and the employee was not supposed to receive any more than her regular salary. 

Dolsingh also stressed that whether workers were registered or not, once their earnings were not less than $120 per week, they were eligible, and all employers must pay contributions. 

He noted that a husband could even employ his wife as a worker and pay contributions. 

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