NSITF: More States Set to Join Employee Compensation Scheme

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) has said more state governments are on the verge of registering their workers in the Employee Compensation Scheme.
It said the aim was to enable public sector workers at the state and local governments enjoy benefits of the scheme.
A statement signed by the General Manager, Corporate Affairs of NSITF, Nwachukwu Godson, stated that Anambra and Abia State governments both promised over the weekend to enrol workers in their respective states into the programme.
According Godson, the assurance was given when the state Branch of the NSITF paid a sensitisation visit to the Government House in Awka by the Anambra State Head of Service, Theodora Igwegbe.

Igwegbe said she would liaise with all relevant offices towards ensuring that the state government enrol its workers into the scheme.
The Head of Service said she was conversant with the Employee Compensation Act of 2010 and the enormous benefits the scheme can bring to the Government of Anambra State and her employees.
She said, “while I served as the Deputy Clerk of  the Anambra State House of Assembly in 2017, I engineered a private member bill, through my representative, on Employee Compensation Scheme, for possible adoption by the State Government, but that it did not see the light of day.
“With my current position as the Head of Service, I believe a great opportunity is here for me to liaise with other necessary offices in the state government towards the implementation of this laudable scheme.”

She promised to liaise with the state’s Accountant General and other relevant officers of the state government in a joint push, to actualise the programme.
Earlier while welcoming the NSITF team led by the Acting Manager of the Awka Branch, Mr. Okpala Chibikem, said Governor Soludo’s vision of Dubai-Taiwan would receive a big boost with the enrolment of workers into Employee Compensation Scheme.
According to him, “the ECA 2010 is aimed at providing guaranteed and adequate compensation to registered employees in the event of death, injury, disability or diseases arising from work or in the course of work, at the place of work or outside of it.”
“It also provides compensation to the next of kin of an employee who may die at work or in the course of work,” noting that, “the one per cent of the workers’ emoluments to be paid as contribution by the state government is not deductible from workers’ salaries as the state government by ECA 2010 should shoulder the responsibility.”

Okpala was accompanied by Peter-maximus Onunkwo, the branch’s head of legal unit as well as Okey Ndubisi.
Similarly, the Chief of Staff to the Abia State Government, Ajagba Chukwurah, assured that the new administration in the state would deploy employee compensation as one of the tools to lift the lots of Abia workers.
Ajagba, who alongside the Senior Special Assistant to Governor Alex Otti on Commerce and Industry, Nwaka Inem, met the team of the Umuahia Branch of the NSITF, and commended the federal government for establishing the scheme. But he noted that a lot needed to be done to sensitise the public on its benefits.
In his presentation, the Manager of the Umuahia Branch of the Fund, Uzoafia Ulari, said the NSITF was making steady progress in the enrolment of private business in the state and urged the state government to avail its workers the benefits that NSITF provides by registering them.
He further stated that the family of a deceased doctor at the Federal Medical Centre Umuahia, who died in the course of work, is currently receiving death benefits from the NSITF, amidst other residents of the state who benefit from either medical expenses, disability or retirement compensations.