Dear Editor,
It is deeply disappointing that Dr. Ashni Singh, the de facto Minister of Finance, failed in his 2025 mid-year report to account for the much-publicised $10 billion “injection” into the National Insurance Scheme. Though repeatedly touted by the President and Dr. Singh, no report – let alone an audited statement – has been produced to show what was paid or how contributors’ rights were affected. This was all political theatre, not transparency, not governance.
As minister responsible for the NIS, Dr. Singh’s record is troubling. Annual NIS reports are years overdue, denying Parliament and the public meaningful oversight. For decades, actuarial recommendations to restore the Scheme’s viability have been ignored. Its survival has depended largely on fortuitous contributions from temporary oil and gas workers – a matter of chance, not competent management.
It also bears recalling that Dr. Singh presided over the Ministry of Finance when the Scheme suffered heavy investment losses following the collapse of Clico, in a sector over which he exercised oversight. That failure continues to haunt the NIS. And in fifteen years as minister responsible for the NIS, not a single amending law has been introduced to modernise this Burnham-era legislation.
Against this background, the one-off cash grant is misleading, coercive and unjust. No new funds are injected; the State merely reimburses payments made. Contributors are required to surrender legal claims arising from disputed contributions – many of which exist only because of chronic mismanagement and poor record-keeping. In effect, the Government has used a cheap avenue to settle its moral and legal obligations.
The Scheme, encouraged by the Government, intimidates claimants by way of appeals – as in the case of the carpenter, and another (an octogenarian) who must wait for his appeal to be heard by a vacant internal tribunal awaiting an appointment, yes by the Minister of Finance.
This week I learnt of another contribution saga, this time of a retired teacher who over a period of several years had her contributions adjusted from 621 to 674 and then to 721, still short of 750, the minimum to qualify for a pension. The NIS likes to placate such persons by assuring them that some persons are short by one contribution!
Elderly claimants, facing ill health and delay, are abandoning valuable legal rights for the one-off grant. This makes the NIS happy, no more hard work, thorough investigations and follow-up with employers, or having their inadequacies pronounced on by the courts in a public forum.
In practice, contributors are forced to trade pension rights worth millions for a one-off payment of $650,000, while bearing the near-impossible burden of proving decades-old employment and contributions.
This injustice is compounded by a Board shaped through ministerial appointments, leaving contributors without meaningful representation.
Until audited figures are published, contributors’ rights clarified, and genuine reform undertaken, the NIS will continue to operate behind a façade of action. Responsibility now rests squarely with Dr. Ashni Singh. Continued inaction is both glaring and inhumane.