Automatic distribution system for Old Age Pension by January

AN automatic distribution system for Old Age Pension will be introduced by January, 2017, but pensioners will have to be in possession of the new National Identification Card, the Social Protection Ministry has disclosed.In a statement on Tuesday, the Ministry said that the new system will ensure greater efficiency, accountability and transparency.

NEW NATIONAL ID CARD

As part of the new system, pensioners will be required to have the new National Identification Card. As such, the Ministry is requesting that all Old Age pensioners who do not have the nine digit identification cards issued in the last Registration Cycle by the Guyana Elections Commission upgrade their National Identification Cards.

“The new system will only use the nine digit National Identification Cards. Pensioners are advised to capitalize on the ongoing registration process at the Guyana Elections Commission offices in their areas to have the new National Identification Cards if they have not done so already,” the Social Protection Ministry urged.

PHANTOM PENSIONERS

A forensic audit and review of the Old Age Pension Scheme had indicated that the Social Protection Ministry, formerly known as the Ministry of Human Services, was in the business of distributing Old Age Pension Books to phantom pensioners during the administration of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic Government (PPP/C).

In a detailed report compiled by Nisam Ali and Company, the Ministry of Finance was informed that there is evidence to suggest that pension books were distributed to non-existent and unqualified persons during the period under review, January 1, 2015 – May 31, 2015.

According to the auditors, there were 27 instances when ineligible persons collected pension books. “We attempted to confirm the existence of these persons by contacting them, however, our attempts were unsuccessful,” the consultants stated.

Additionally, there is no system in place to ensure that pensioners in the hinterland are alive, so there is a possibility that Old Age Pension Books are distributed to ghost pensioners.

In January 2011, Alliance for Change (AFC) Member of Parliament, the late Sheila Holder had contended that 17,640 persons who were listed on the 2010 Old Age Pensioners’ Register were phantoms.

She had argued that payments to the ‘phantom pensioners’ totaled some $116M monthly, or $1.3B annually.

Holder had told the National Assembly that according to the Guyana Population and Housing Census at 2002, the number of individuals over 65 was 32,030, and had risen proportionately from 3.9 percent of the population in 1980, to 4.3 percent.

And according to statistics from the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, she said, the number of pensioners, which in 2002 were 33,425, had increased significantly to 44,000 in 2010.

It was these indicators, coupled with other computations done by Holder, which resulted in the conclusion that there had been an increase in ‘phantom’ pensioners.