By Cross Udo, Abuja
The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) has won the 2023 edition of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association’s (NECA) Award in the Best Service Delivery category.
Receiving the prize at the 2023 NECA Awards in Lagos, the Managing Director of the NSITF, Barrister Maureen Allagoa, said the honour will ginger the agency to greater heights, adding that it underscores the huge mileage the fund has lately covered in the implementation of the Employees’ Compensation Scheme.
Represented at the event by the NSITF’s Executive Director, Administration, Prof. Gabriel Okenwa, Allagoa said the NSITF will remain steadfast to the unwavering expansion of social security to all Nigerian workers.
A statement by the General Manager of the Fund, Nwachukwu Godson, quoted the MD as saying, “The NECA award is simply a testimony to all we have been doing lately. It is a mirror of our stoic commitment to service delivery, geared towards the enhancement of the welfare and social security of workers. It is a high-water mark in our recent history, and we can only do more.
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“This management Exco which I lead, has loudly been quiet over various strategic measures, we have taken to re-position the NSITF, and remained unbowed to our challenges, usually blown out of proportion by detractors.
“We are therefore elated that Nigerians through this NECA Awards, which was meticulously conducted through transparent online voting, has vindicated our efforts.
“We shall not rest on our oars until we take the ECS to the remotest corners of the nation, where the majority of Nigerians – men and women, daily toil to eke out a living. We have in this wise, strengthened our informal sector department for a greater foray into that sector to bring in traders, mechanics, hairdressers, market men and women, carpenters, and others into the elastic benefits of the ECS.
“We have also recalibrated our strategic objectives to properly align with the Eight Point Agenda of the Tinubu Administration on Poverty Reduction. Gradually, timelines are being worked out to expand into the untapped areas of the ILO Convention 102, including old age, unemployment, and family benefits, among others.
“We have upscaled our reach on employment injury and invalidity benefits to 670 dependent beneficiaries and 852 disability beneficiaries currently on our monthly payroll, besides several deceased dependents who are also under our care, till their last child is 21 years old or graduates from the tertiary institution.
“The upward trend in our sensitization drive has moved our enrolees to over 145,000 employers and 7.4 million employees, while claims and compensations have reached over 103,000 beneficiaries, including 111 persons assisted to their feet with artificial limbs, apart from 11 others sent abroad for further medical treatment. So far, about N6.6bn has been spent on all of these.”
Allagoa added that the Fund has further re-engineered its internal operations for greater efficiency, part of which is the introduction of a monthly online Management Performance Review which resulted in the opening up of new frontiers, with improved interface among the over 5000 staff members of the fund.
“This innovation has brought to the forefront, an unprecedented outreach of the ECS at our frontier branches in Yola, Uyo, and Ibadan where the NSITF has not only registered new employers and employees but has also stretched the range of ECS benefits to workers.
“As NSITF therefore continues to evolve and adapt to the ever-changing needs of workers, the NECA award catalyses to break new grounds in social security. We remain committed therefore to the standard we have set in service delivery where our Operations Directorate has drastically bridged our turnaround time in access to our enrolees.”
NECA had earlier at the event said “The awards allow the employers to achieve the highest accolades available, and to demonstrate their top projects to their peers, the wider industry and the community,” adding that it was a reward to the “resilience of employers in 2023.”
Meanwhile, the Delta State Government has described the Employees Compensation Scheme as a well-conceived initiative of the federal government towards the upliftment of workers and pledged to key into the scheme.
The state gave the assurance when the Chief of Staff to the State Governor, Johnson Erijo, played host to the management team of the Asaba branch of the NSITF.
Erijo, who described the thrust of the ECS as compensation, rehabilitation, vocational training, and empowerment in case of incapacitation, said no well-meaning government can ignore it.
The Manager of the Asaba Branch of the Fund, Onuorah Ifeoma, earlier in her presentation said the ECS applies to all employers and employees in the public and private sectors at all levels of the three tiers of government, revealing that over 6000 employers and over 73,000 workers are currently registered with the ECS in Delta State.
She further sought the support of the Delta state government towards the enrolment of the state workforce.
