The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

FREE National Movement Senator Dr Duane Sands yesterday called for a complete revamping of the leadership hierarchy at the National Insurance Board (NIB) amid internal squabbles and painstaking system failures that have forced thousands of claimants to go unassisted for months.

The Elizabeth hopeful condemned Labour and National Insurance Minister Shane Gibson, suggesting that the failures of the Golden Gates MP have been the largest contributing factor to the failures of the “vitally essential” organisation.

Dr Sands said while the current state of NIB would have led to the immediate dismissal of the substantive minister in any other democratic country, the “do nothing, say nothing” nature of the Progressive Liberal Party lends to the notion that nothing will change.

“Heads must roll and the blame has to fall directly at the feet of the Shane Gibson,” he told The Tribune.

“NIB is faced with a human problem that needs to be addressed, NIB has a software problem that must be addressed, none of this is okay and we have to stop accepting this type of ineptitude in this country.

“Persons are being paid to do their jobs, if those jobs aren’t being done then it becomes the job of the minister to find and hire persons focused on running that office efficiently because the excuses and passive responses have to stop.”

Dr Sands lamented the ongoing ordeal at NIB, stressing that the rumblings about internal strife and procedural flaws under the Christie administration has been heard for “some time now.”

On Monday, officials at NIB announced plans to extend operational hours to offset issues with its new V3 system. The announcement came following public outcry that thousands of claimants were unable to receive benefit payments on time due to flaws in the $14m system.

NIB’s lead operations consultant, Jayson Moxey, said the organisation is working “feverishly” to overcome faults related to the way the V3 operations system is analysing and calculating contribution pay outs for claimants.

According to some media reports, claimants in some instances haven’t received payouts from as far back as January.

Officials at NIB have suggested that 400 short-term claimants and 1,300 long-term claimants have been adversely affected.

NIB has also confirmed that 15,000 claimants have been processed and paid between April 1 and June 30, totalling $8.5m in payouts.

The implementation of the V3 platform marked the second phase of NIB’s new IT platform. Phase one, the introduction of the new NIB smart card, was launched in May 2014.

Phase two was expected to be completed by April; however, these system “glitches” paired with other organisational issues have stunted this proposed timeline.

There is no clarity on when any of these matters will be resolved. Moreover, officials at NIB have suggested that resolution for claimants could come at any point between the end of July and the end of the year.