The National Insurance Scheme (NIS) contributor base has expanded by nearly 41 per cent over the past five years, reflecting employment growth, Senior Minister with Responsibility for Finance Dr Ashni Singh has said. However, he warned that gaps in contributions and service delivery remain a concern.

Speaking at the NIS' 57th anniversary observances, Dr Singh said the scheme gained nearly 80,000 additional contributors between end-2020 and end-2025. That expansion, he explained, accompanied the creation of more than 156,000 jobs over the same period, placing greater demands on the NIS to ensure workers are properly registered and their contributions are paid.

Against this backdrop, Dr Singh urged employers to comply with their legal obligations, while calling on employees and self-employed persons to actively monitor their NIS records. "Every worker should request their NIS record at least once a year," he said, urging workers to check whether deductions appearing on their payslips are actually being remitted. He warned against workers discovering missing contributions only when they approach retirement age.

On service delivery, the Minister said complaints against the NIS have declined substantially following increased outreach, but maintained that the goal must be to eliminate them entirely.

Dr Singh also highlighted the NIS' push to increase pension payments through bank accounts, noting that the number of pensioners receiving benefits directly through banks has risen from just over 11,000 in December 2020 to 20,454. Still, he said more than 40,000 pensioners have yet to make the switch.

He therefore urged the NIS to intensify efforts to encourage pensioners to adopt direct deposits, pointing to the time and transportation costs associated with collecting pensions in person, and said the objective should be for "almost all" pensioners to receive their benefits directly into bank accounts.

Beyond pensions, Dr Singh said the Government has also embarked on a major project to digitise the scheme's operations. "This is an instruction that came from no less a person than His Excellency the President, who has said he wants persons to be able to interact with the NIS digitally. You must be able to apply for a registration digitally. You must be able to submit, if you're an employer or a self-employed person, you must be able to submit your monthly returns digitally," Dr Singh said.