Over three hundred and six million naira has been paid as claims and compensations by the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund NSITF in the last four months to beneficiaries who sustained work place injuries.
The claims cover medical expenses refund, loss of productivity, disability benefits to injured employees, death benefits to next of kin of deceased employees and retirement benefits to disabled employees.
Correspondent Helen Shok Jok reports that the occasion was the quarterly media interactive session organised by the NSITF in Abuja.
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The NSITF Managing Director, Dr Michael Akabogu, represented by Mrs. Maureen Allagoa, the Executive Director of Administration said the interactive session was to examine the Second Quarter Scorecard of the Fund.
He said that the organisation in the in the last four months paid a total of N306, 554, 896, 23 as claims and compensations.
“These claims and compensations cover Medical Expenses Refund (MER), Loss of Productivity(LOP), Disability Benefits to injured employees, death benefits to next of kin of deceased and employers and retirement benefits to disabled employers,” he said.
The Employee Compensation Act 2010, established the Compensation Scheme which provide for compensation to employees in the event of death, injury, disability or disease arising out of or in the course of employment; and for related matters.
The Act also provides compensation to the dependants of an employee who dies in the course of work.
The NSITF Managing Director said that the Fund had successfully processed a total of 23,455 Employees Compensation Scheme (ECS) applications across the 56 branches of the fund.
He said that the fund had also issued 22,761 Employees Compensation Certificates in the last four months.
On new innovation to meet the needs of the present time, Akabogu said that the Fund had commenced the automation of the NSITF operational processes through its E-NSITF project.
“This is in compliance with the Federal Government’s directive for ease of business and our desire to make sure that our employers experience eases as they do business with us.
“The E-NSITF project will among other benefits, block all financial and productivity leakages within the fund and measure staff productivity as well as increase contributions of employers to the pool of fund,” he said.
He said that the Fund was committed to ideals of transparency, accountability, and prudence in the discharged its duties adding that the procurement processes of the NSITF were no longer executed by the Management Board but were now within the purview of the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
“This management in its bid to permanently reposition the fund is not only ensuring probity in its financial management but it is also implementing strategic reforms such as increased utilisation of technology in its operation, redeployment of staff and units where skills and competence are being harnessed and utilised for the good of the Fund and better service delivery.”
Mrs Ijeoma Oji-Okoronkwo, the NSITF General Manager/Head Corporate Affairs/Board Secretary, said the management of the fund had commenced the extension of ECS to the informal sector.
She said this was to ensure that no worker both formal, informal and the organised private sector were left out from the social security safety net.
She noted that in repositioning of the fund for improved productivity, management had conducted trainings for over 1,531 of its staff in the period under review in strategic areas relating to their competences and job roles.
The Head, Informal Sector Department Mr Shehu Abubakar, quoting statistics, said about 67% of the total production of Nigeria’s over 200 million population comes from the informal sector, representing 70% of the GDP to the economy, yet this sector is left out of the social security coverage saying that this what the NSITF is set to address.
“We have sensitized about 8500 informal workers and presently, we have enrolled more than one thousand of them.
“As a department, what we have is that we have mapped out about 442 service delivery centres using our regions and branches across the country…because like you said it is better to take the service to the people,” Abubakar said.
NSITF is also in talks with the International Labour Organisation ILO, on the need for the review of the law in view of the new challenges posed by the COVID-19 and other intangible situation,
The management of the NSITF believes that the interactive sessions with the media would help in ensuring that the messages and evolutions in the organization reached its target would be beneficiaries.
