Dear Editor,
Since the publication of my commentary on the NIS, we wrote the Scheme on behalf of Messrs. Shariff Zainul and Nathan Craig, appealing for urgent and humane relief. NIS has cynically and flatly rejected both approaches. That response is difficult to reconcile with the very purpose of social security: to protect contributors when age, illness and incapacity leave them most vulnerable.
Mr. Zainul is seriously ill and substantially immobile. What we proposed was, in substance, an advance: an interim payment without prejudice to NIS’s legal position and fully creditable against whatever might ultimately be found due. NIS therefore stood to lose nothing. Yet it refused and directed us to its external counsel, as though the decision were no longer in its hands. It is. Counsel acts on instructions.
Mr. Craig succeeded before the Appeal Tribunal in October 2023. NIS appealed five days later under Regulation 12(1) of the National Insurance and Social Security (Determination of Claims and Questions) Regulations and suspended payment. Our request required no concession from NIS; we sought payment in accordance with the Tribunal’s award and the statutory scheme, subject only to any lawful basis for suspension. Almost three years later, NIS says its own appeal is still awaiting a hearing.
In neither case was NIS being asked to surrender anything. In Zainul’s case, the payment would have been recoverable or creditable. In Craig’s case, we asked for no favour, only what the law and the existing award provide. Yet NIS chose refusal in both.
But for years of administrative mismanagement, staggering incompetence and endless delay, both matters should have been resolved long ago. Its latest responses are especially callous given that NIS was shown photographs of the present condition of both men.
NIS is a social insurance institution. Yet even commercial insurers often show more humanity than NIS has shown these two men.
The message conveyed by NIS is stark: we are not moved by your condition and circumstances; if you want relief, take us to court. That is an extraordinary posture for a social security institution dealing with elderly and seriously ill contributors.
Yours faithfully,
Christopher Ram
Attorney-at-Law
Attorney for Shariff Zainul and Nathan Craig