NSITF: Delivering on FG’s Poverty Alleviation, Social Security Agenda

Finance Page

As the federal government grapples with the demand by Nigerians and organised labour for better living conditions and improved welfare for workers, people should be looking the way of organisations like the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund to help provide the solutions. Onyebuchi Ezigbo writes on the targets and expectations from NSITF under the Renewed Hope Agenda of the Tinubu-led administration

The   Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) was established in 1961 as the National Provident Fund (NPF) to provide poverty alleviation measure as required by Convention No. 102 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Since then, it has been restructured severally leading to its current status established by the Employees’ Compensation Act (ECA) of December 17, 2010, following a restructuring through the National Assembly bill.

The Act mandates the NSITF to provide adequate compensation and rehabilitation to all employees and their registered beneficiaries in case of injuries, death, occupational diseases, or disabilities that occur in the workplace or the course of work. It is also programmed to regulate workplace conditions and provide succour to workers who sustain injuries in the course of their duties.  

Based on its assigned mandate, Nigerians should be able to hold the NSITF accountable for delivering on the social security agenda of the federal government.

It is also important to note that the organisation is among the special purpose vehicle which President Bola Tinubu’s administration should deploy to tame the twin monster of poverty and economic inequality among the working populace.

Over the years, previous governments seemed to have underestimated and under-utilised this vital organ for the transformation and promotion of worker’s well-being.

The Fund became immersed in one form of controversy or the other with the management often linked with financial impropriety. It was not until the present dispensation in NSITF that sanity seemed to be gaining ground at the agency. 

For purposes of clarity, NSITF just as the name goes, signifies welfare insurance for Nigerian workers. Apart from compensating workers who sustain injuries during operational duties, it also conducts Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) exercises that enhances the condition of the workplace environment.

The Managing Director of the Fund, Maureen Allagoa at the maiden edition of the Fund’s Central Management Performance Review (CMPR) in Abuja recently, made it known that the agency is being re-modelled in line with the eight-point agenda of the Tinubu administration for better service delivery to Nigerians.

She said the Employees’ Compensation Scheme (ECS) is fortuitously in alignment with the poverty reduction and healthy national workforce agenda of the Tinubu administration. 

Still, on the development agenda of the federal government, Allagoa said the cardinal place NSITF occupies as the operator of the scheme in achieving this lofty scheme will help in doubling down on the attainment of the national objective.

As Nigerians reflect on the one year of the President Tinubu-led administration, it is necessary to highlight the progress being made by NSITF in meeting the targets set in the social security aspect of the government’s eight-point agenda. This assessment will take into consideration the performance of the Fund in terms of coverage and expansion of the number of employers and employees enjoying its services. It will also highlight the shortcomings and the challenges facing the organisation. 

While providing insight to NSITF’s new focus, Allagoa said the management of the Fund has already launched an initiative that would improve the lives of Nigerians through enhanced human and capital development.   

Through the initiative, she said NSITF would promote social investments to improve the lives of Nigerians and enhance human and capital development. 

She said: “We have commenced a strategic drive into the informal sector of the economy to provide social security services for the employees through our close collaboration with Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) using their various associations and bodies. “This strategy extends even to associations and umbrella bodies of small and medium scale enterprises in the agricultural sector to improve productivity and boost food production which will invariably enhance food security. This aligns with the key priority area, which speaks to boosting agriculture and achieving food security.” 

Allagoa said the NSITF with 57 branches and 12 regional offices across the nation, and over 5,000 staff strength of diverse academic backgrounds have a strong institutional memory and database to provide leadership in data generation, storage, and sharing with relevant agencies towards success in the eight key priority areas of the Tinubu administration. On the milestones achieved by the current management, the NSITF MD said a lot has been attained through the discharge of its statutory mandate of providing adequate compensation and rehabilitation to Nigerian workers and their registered beneficiaries who have sustained injuries, occupational diseases, disabilities, or died in the course of work.

She also stated that the fund, between July 2011, when the ECA came into operation, and 2024, has registered over 145,000 employers and 7.4 million employees into the scheme, paid claims and compensation to over 103,000 beneficiaries, including 111 persons who received artificial limbs (prosthetics) and 11 beneficiaries who were sent abroad for further medical treatment. She further said that NSITF has met set targets on the Social Security aspect of the eight-point agenda, stating that it has dispensed social benefits to 20,531 Nigerians under different packages of its Claims and Compensation. 

Again, through the efforts of the current management of the fund, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator George Akume, had in a circular dated September 22, 2023, directed all the federal government’s ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to commence the mandatory contributions of one per cent of the emoluments of all public servants to the Employees’ Compensation Scheme of the NSITF. This followed the decision of the Extraordinary Session of the Federal Executive Council under President Buhari, which had on Monday, May 15, 2023, given the approval for the statutory one per cent deduction.

According to the circular, the Minister of Finance is directed to “deduct the contributions from source and remit same to the NSITF for the payment of claims and compensations to deserving beneficiaries for death, injury, disease or disability sustained in the course of duty as provided in the Employees’ Compensation Act, 2010, Act No. 13.” 

It further directed all MDAs to “ensure strict compliance with the circular.”  

Furthermore, management said it has made further inroads recently by securing the approval of many federal government-owned institutions, state governments, and private sector organisations and institutions to implement ECS and Occupational Safety and Health (OSH).  Notable among the states are Akwa Ibom, Kano, Lagos, Plateau, Abia, Rivers, Sokoto, Delta, and especially Bauchi, Oyo, and Yobe which have enrolled.

In another review of the NSITF performance carried out by the management tagged, the 2nd edition of the Fund’s monthly online Management Performance Review (MPR), the Fund’s General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Nwachukwu Godson, stated that the Fund has leveraged the essentials of the Employees’ Compensation to positively touch thousands of lives of workers in the country.

Godson said that while the NSITF reached out to 103,000 injured workers with different categories of social security benefits in 12 years (2011 and 2023), the current management of the Fund has widened the outreach with an extensive inroad, dispensing benefits to an unprecedented 20,531 persons under different baskets of claims and compensations in one year (March 2023-May 2024).  

Historically, one of the shortcomings of the NSITF was its inability to expand its operations to cover the private sector, especially those Nigerians in the informal sector of the economy.

However, Godson said the Fund has made that foray into the informal sector attracting businesses in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

He said: “Besides, our foray into the informal sector, a strategic area that houses over 80% of Nigerians is paying off as we have established close collaboration with various associations in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).”

 Because some of these associations are involved in agricultural concerns, it connects directly to our aim of gingering food production, which again is at the heart of Agendum No. 3 of the eight-point agenda. Ensuring the safety of the workplace environment is a key aspect of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention and is at the heart of workers’ welfare needs.

According to Godson, the Fund is implementing its mandate in that direction and has conducted a total of 5,592 Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) exercises in the last year to prevent or reduce workplace accidents. In addition, he said the management has turned its attention to the reform of the agency to streamline its operations while positioning it to seamlessly deliver its mandate. 

In what he described as the strategic restructuring of NSITF, the Managing Director said the Fund has introduced a three-tier management performance review of monthly online MPR, half-year regional MPR, and the yearly Central MPR. The result from this dynamic peer review, according to her has filled in gaps resulting in higher productivity.

 She said for the first time in the history of the Fund, the 2023 year target was overshot.  Part of the set target of the current management of NSITF was the drive to expand the frontiers of the ECS and bring its numerous benefits to the doorstep of all workers. 

 In furtherance of the vision, the management said it created four new branch-in branches as well as service centres to take the ECS to the recess of Nigeria. 

The Fund’s Legal Department was also re-organised and made to be up and running in handling many cases against recalcitrant employers, recovering debts, and saving costs usually expended on litigations. In addition, the management said it has made the issuance of the compliant certificate easier for employers by divesting 90 per cent of the processes and handing them to the branches and regions that are mostly in direct interface with employers. To promote more confidence and trust, the Managing Director said the Fund is collaborating with its largest contributor, NECA, to beat down under-cutting by employers who base contributions on basic, housing, and transport instead of total emoluments. Though the Fund is strongly positioning itself to help deliver the government’s aspirations to better the lives of Nigerians, it faces some challenges.

One of such challenges which the fund has lamented about, was the default in the payment of the mandatory one per cent contribution for ECS. In a recent presentation in Abuja, the fund said that government MDAs are the chief culprits in this regard.