Chairman of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS), Queen’s Counsel Leslie Haynes, says an inquiry will be launched into what went wrong with the social security system that resulted in thousands of late pension payments this month.
He told the Saturday Sun that out of the more than 50 000 cheques, 132 were to be delivered on Christmas Eve, a situation which he said must never recur.
“This delay will be the subject of an inquiry. They [NIS staff] tell us that it is a glitch, but I have the same information as the public does, which is that we were three or four days without the process being implemented. Right now the computer IT [information technology] specialist might be able to tell me what caused it, but I can’t tell you what caused it. My position right now is that it has been caused, let us first find a solution and hopefully get all of the cheques out today [yesterday]. Once this is over, we are going to have an inquiry into what caused it to ensure that it does not happen again,” he said.
Last week during a nationally televised press conference, Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn said no effort was being spared to have the pensioners’ money ready early this week, adding that a recent power outage had an impact on the NIS’ systems. He said pensioners receiving lodgements on their bank accounts were largely spared of any impact. (CLM)
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