Finance Minister tells NIS to consider unemployment benefits

Finance Minister Winston Jordan has called on the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) to consider the issuance of unemployment benefits. The Minister was at the time addressing the management and staff of the agency at its 49th-anniversary celebrations recently.

He believes that the Scheme can help offset the country’s social and unemployment problems by paying unemployment benefits.

“There is a reasonably high level of unemployment in Guyana particularly in some regions –I could think of Linden –and this is a gap in the scheme at the moment that we don’t pay unemployment benefits –certainly to (help) people over from the loss of one employment for whatever reason, and employment in another capacity,” Jordan said.

Certainly, this will be for a period, he said, as he suggested six months.

While the NIS has seen a decrease in its revenue over the years, Jordan said more needs to be done by the management and staff of the agency to go after delinquent employers.

He believes the agency has “too many desk-bound employees,” and even collusion between employees and delinquent employers.