Dear Claudienne:

I now reside in the United States.

I applied for my old age pension in April 2013, and became eligible on August 22, 2013. I received my first cheque in August 2014. As a requirement I had to sign, notarise and return the Life Certificate to the NIS. To date I am yet to receive another cheque.

I have made numerous calls to the Ministry of Labour and on January 7, 2015, I was told that there was no record of the ministry having received my signed Life Certificate. They informed me that I would get a cheque every six months.

On January 11, 2015 I sent a registered letter to the ministry that included several copies of various documents. The ministry received the letter on February 12, 2015.

The letter I wrote to the ministry stated the following:

“I became eligible to receive my old age pension on August 22, 2013 and was awarded an amount of $1,412.84 per week, effective the date of eligibility.

Cheque no. 00571261 dated July 25, 2014 in the amount of US $430.63 representing arrears of pension for the period August 22, 2013-April 16, 2014 was received. The Life Certificate was signed, notarised and returned to your office on August 27, 2014.

Your office advised that payment is made every six months. It is now January 2015, and I am yet to receive payment for the six- month period, May 2014 – October 2014.

Kindly remit same with immediate effect.

Please clarify what is causing the delay in the preparation of the drafts by NCB.”

However, when I called the ministry on Monday, February 23, 2015, I was told that they had not received the letter with the documents.

I faxed the documents to the ministry on March 10, 2015, and five minutes after sending the fax, I called to confirm receipt of the fax. However, the officer told me that she had not yet received it.

It is infuriating that after toiling tirelessly, when the time comes to receive what is due, one gets the runaround. How many other persons have been pushed around and frustrated to the point where they no longer bother to get what is rightfully theirs? Shame on this dysfunctional system.

I crave your assistance in resolving this matter. I have attached a copy of the documents for your attention.

HM

Dear HM:

The NIS advised Tell Claudienne that the procedure for paying overseas pensioners involved the sending of a list of eligible persons to the National Commercial Bank (NCB) for the drafts to be prepared by the bank.

However, the bank has not been preparing the drafts expeditiously, resulting in the NIS payments to overseas pensioners being late.

The NIS has informed us that they are about six months behind in making the payments to overseas pensioners, because when the calculations are made and the list of persons sent to NCB for the drafts to be prepared, they are told that the bank is short-staffed. Consequently, there is a long delay before NIS gets the drafts.

We asked NCB to investigate and comment on the NIS allegations.

On June 2, 2015, NCB sent the following e-mail to Tell Claudienne:

“Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention and please note that we are in dialogue with the NIS office directly in relation to this.

The service of dispatching overseas pension drafts is one we undertake on behalf of the NIS, and the regretted delay results from a series of issues that are being resolved. We are currently working through both offices to reduce the inconvenience arising from the delay in dispatching these drafts, and efforts are underway to remedy this going forward.”

We will follow up this matter. Please let us know when you receive your payment.

Good luck.

Dear Claudienne:

I worked as a watchman at a primary school in St James from March 1999 to October 30, 2014. I am now retired. I want to do my tax returns in order to get a refund on some of the taxes I have paid. However, at the Ministry of Education Region 4 office I was told that I need to get a P24 form from the ministry to be able to apply. I was told to call the ministry in Kingston, but whenever I call nobody answers.

Please tell me what to do.

SM

Dear SM:

The Ministry of Education has advised us that you can only apply for a tax refund for the last seven years of your employment. The ministry said that you should write them a letter explaining that you want to submit tax returns for the last seven years. Please take the letter to the Region 4 office and ask them to send it to the Accounts Department of the Ministry of Education in Kingston. The Accounts Department will then send the appropriate form to the Region 4 office where you can collect it. You should then take it to the school where you worked, and they will prepare the information for submission to the tax office.

Good luck.

Have a problem with a store, utility, a company? Telephone 936-9436 or write to: Tell Claudienne c/o Sunday Finance, Jamaica Observer, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5; or e-mail: edwardsc@jamaicaobserver.com. Please include a contact phone number.