WHEN her post as a clerk in a government entity was made redundant in the 1980s she worked odd jobs, faithfully making her National Insurance Scheme (NIS) contributions from her meagre earnings on her own until 2021 when she retired.

Now the 67-year-old is locked in a, so far, fruitless back and forth with the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and her banking institution, neither of which can tell her where her paltry lump sum of $115,391.08 is nor the first two meagre monthly pension payments of $8,242.22 each.

“I worked as clerk at the parish council from the ’70s. I was made redundant in the 80s so I did odd jobs. I worked at the electoral office now and then but I paid my contributions on my own,” the woman, who said she has been working since she was 20 years old, told the Jamaica Observer.

“I have been working since I was getting six dollars a day. There was a special employment programme during those times, and they employ you and pay you six dollars a day and draw NIS from it. So, all those little, little bits added up,” she explained.

“I applied for this retirement pension in June 2021; I did odd jobs up to that time. I went to the ministry, carried in all my documents to get my NIS pension. They took my documents and write up and everything. I didn’t hear from them for nearly a year, then they wrote a letter to me saying ‘based on my contributions to the NIS your retirement benefit entitlement will be $8, 242.22 monthly from flat rate contribution of $1,700 and from wage-related contribution $1,196.84’. So in total, for the lump sum they will give me $115,391.08 and then the $8,242 monthly,” she said.

But up until now the senior citizen has not seen a cent of that lump sum and had to make several queries before her monthly payments appeared.

“I didn’t get the payments for March or April of 2022, and when I start to investigate and go up there [NIS office in St Elizabeth] I got May onwards. But, I don’t get the lump sum nor those two first monthly payments. When I went to the bank, they said they saw nothing sent to my account. They said at the NIS department in Santa Cruz that they made a mistake and sent it to another account, and they can’t retrieve it to give me,” she told the Observer fretfully.

She said the responses from workers at the ministry so far have been less than encouraging.

“I keep going there [Santa Cruz office] and until now they are just giving me the run around. Sometimes I call Kingston, they put me on hold until the credit runs out, I have to hang up; I call back, nobody answers. The last time they took my number and said they would call me and until today day. Oh my God, I am tired! They mussi want me to give up,” she said, sighing heavily.

The Observer has placed a query with an official in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security who has promised to look into the complaint.

The NIS is a compulsory, contributory-funded social security scheme covering all employed persons in Jamaica. It is administered under the National Insurance Act and offers some financial protection to workers and their family against loss of income arising from injury on the job, sickness, retirement, and/or death of the breadwinner. The scheme covers all persons between the ages of 18 and 70 who are gainfully occupied in insurable employment and are registered with the NIS. The insurable population includes employed persons, self-employed persons, and voluntary contributors.