WORKING GROUP TO OVERSEE IMPLEMENTATION OF CARICOM AGREEMENT ON SOCIAL SECURITY

Further progress is being made on the move to protect the entitlement of workers in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to social security benefits, and to provide equality of treatment when they move from one Member State to another.

Persons who have worked in different Member States of CARICOM, and think they qualify for benefits under the CARICOM Agreement on Social Security are advised to contact the social security organisation in their respective country of residence for more information.

The Tenth CARICOM Heads of Social Security Organisations' Meeting, held on 4-5 October 1999 in Nassau, The Bahamas, has reported that nearly all the Member States have signed the Agreement. The Bahamas, and Montserrat are scheduled to sign at the Seventh Special Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government in Trinidad and Tobago later this month. This will bring the number of countries to have signed to 13. However, of the countries which signed on to the Agreement, only six, namely Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago have completed the process to give legal effect to the Agreement by the enactment of legislation. It is expected that before the end of the year, the other signatories to the Agreement will complete the process of enactment of legislation.

Participants at the recent meeting appointed a six-member Working Party to oversee and promote full implementation of the CARICOM Agreement on Social Security. Members of the Working Party comprise the officer responsible for Labour and Manpower Development at the CARICOM Secretariat, and the Chief Executive Officers of the Social Security organisations of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Guyana, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The delegates to the Meeting also approved the forms that will be used regionally to process claims.

When the Agreement is enacted, previous contributions made by persons who have worked in more than one Member State, will be taken into account when a claim is made.

The "reciprocal" Agreement covers long-term Benefits, that is, Invalidity, Disablement, Retirement and Survivors, and requires social security organisations in Member States to provide information to each other when presented with claims from persons who have worked and contributed in more than one member country.

It was noted since the CARICOM Social Security Agreement came into effect on July1, 1997, one of the countries, Barbados, received one such claim for benefit.