Dear Claudienne

I am a teacher and so is my mother.

A former school principal, she retired from government service in April. She taught at a school in St Mary from 1971 to 1972, then worked at a school in Portland from 1973 to April 2010 when she retired.

In order to have her contributions to the National Housing Trust refunded now that she has retired, my mother went to the Ministry of Education to get verification of her income. The ministry gave her a letter listing her contributions to both the NIS and NHT.

However, her contributions to the NIS and NHT for 15 years are missing from the verification of income letter.

How can this be?

She has pointed out the problem to the ministry but nothing has been done. This situation could drastically alter her pension benefits.

The missing contributions are for the years 1971-1979, 1981-1985, 1988-1990 and 1992.

Could you kindly assist in having this situation rectified.

VW

Dear VW

We spoke to the Director of the Teachers Financial Services Unit who requested that your mother fax her a copy of the verification of income letter that she got from the ministry. Tell Claudienne notes that your mother sent the facsimile. The Director has spoken to your mother and apologised as she said she should never have been given the letter with all those years of contributions missing.

The Director said that investigations show that the main records for the 15 years are missing. However, she assured us that alternative salary records would be used to find the missing years. She said that the verification of income letter with all your years of contributions will be completed by August 30 the latest.

Good luck.

Dear Claudienne

Could you resolve an argument my wife and I have been having over the renewal of a Jamaican passport? She insists I need my birth certificate along with the passport-size photographs to secure it. I have two other passports and all that was required for each of them was two passport-size photographs.

I told her that although your appearance may change, your birth date never does. However, she is adamant that I still need to produce my birth certificate and that that is how it has always been.

Could you please provide me with some clarification on this matter.

AB

Dear AB

According to the Passport Immigration & Citizenship Agency (PICA), all applicants for the new machine-readable passports are being requested to submit a birth certificate. If a female applicant is married she must also submit her marriage certificate. It was explained to Tell Claudienne that a new data base has been set up for the machine readable-passports that are now being issued. The old blue passports were based on a manual system whose records would be archived by now and would not be easily retrievable, PICA said.

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.