Beginning January 2022, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security will start to transition pension payments from fortnightly to monthly, for National Insurance Scheme (NIS) pensioners, who use the pension order books.
This was disclosed by Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Collette Roberts Risden, during a recent interview with JIS News. She explained that historically, NIS pensioners would get their payment via vouchers in pension order books totaling up to13 vouchers fortnightly, over six months. However, since the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, they have been allowed to collect two or three payments in one.
“With this new thrust, we are moving to pay our pensioners 12 vouchers, one for each month instead. This would be in keeping with what has been happening over the past one year and nine months, with the early encashment of pension vouchers,” Mrs Roberts Risden said.
The phased implementation, beginning January, will be done depending on the payment cycle. There are six payment cycles reflected by a letter at the end of the pension number assigned to each pensioner.
Pensioners who are to receive their new pension order books in January 2022 will receive the first set of six-voucher pension order books. This will continue until June 2022, at which time, the NIS pension population paid by this method would have been phased into the six-voucher pension order book. The Permanent Secretary is assuring pensioners and all NIS beneficiaries that this transition will not change the amount that they receive annually.
Meanwhile, she is encouraging NIS pensioners, who are not registered with the Direct Deposit programme to do so.
Mrs Roberts Risden said that for the past three years, the NIS has been encouraging new pensioners to utilise the Direct Deposit facility to collect their pensions, which means payments will be sent directly to their bank account.
She explained that the new thrust is in keeping with the move that was started years ago to have a single payment each month to NIS pensioners. “We recognised, however, that there are pensioners who do not have bank accounts or depending on their age and stage in life may find it difficult to manage a bank account and as such, there will always be pensioners, who collect their pension using the pension order books. Mrs. Roberts Risden said that the transition to a single pension order voucher is also in a bid to reduce the number of times pensioners must go out to the post office.
“It is our intention to make it easier on the pensioners,” she noted.
