Members of Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) contributed more than 80 per cent of the Employees Compensation Scheme (ECS) operated by the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF).

The Managing Director of the NSITF, Maureen Allagoa, who disclosed this in Abuja, declared NECA as the Fund’s most reliable social partner in the implementation of the ECS.

While expressing appreciation to members of NECA, the NSITF boss said she expects the figure to rise further in the current year. She added that the Fund will continue to partner with and consult NECA in all major decisions that affect the two organisations.

Allagoa stated that it was on the advice of NECA that it introduced a modified one-off registration fee of N20,00 for newly registering employers and a recurring certificate processing fee of N30,000 for employers requesting compliance certificates.

She added that the Fund has decentralized its compliance certificate processing by divesting over 90 per cent of the process to the branches and regions, while the head office only produces the certificate for onward delivery to the employers.

Allagoa explained that this step was aimed at shortening the turnaround time for the issuance of certificates, stressing that the ongoing digitization of the Fund via the E-NSITF will reduce the exercise to 48 hours.

Allagoa further urged NECA to assist the Fund in its attempt to enforce the one per cent deduction from the total remuneration as stipulated by the ECS instead of one per cent of basic, housing and transport as still being practiced by some private employers despite an updated communication on the issue by the NECA secretariat.

In his remarks, Director General of NECA, Adewale Oyerinde, who appreciated the critical role the NSITF plays in stabilising the world of work, pledged the continued support of the Organised Private Sector (OPS) to the Fund as a social partner despite the downturns in the national economy.

He said: “We have noted the many innovations that you brought in during this one year, and from far within our space, we have also noticed how much stability you have brought to the fund.

“We have also noted the direction that the fund seems to have now, especially the openness to engage because I know your Executive Director, Operations has been in Lagos twice. To us, this openness to engage has endeared the Fund the most.”

Speaking on the new Federal Government policy on a 50 per cent deduction of gross inflow under the Fiscal Responsibility Act and the listing of the NSITF among the agencies affected by the deduction of internally generated revenue, Oyerinde declared that NECA is of the strong view that the contributions by the employers to the NSITF are not revenue to the government.

His explanation: “It is not a revenue to the government. It is meant for a purpose, and the purpose for which it is meant will be compromised if that policy goes through. So, we have also started our advocacy at the back end. We had a meeting with the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week because the policy also affected them. Our advocacy is already in place, and we will continue to engage.

“We have started doing that. When this visit was scheduled, we wanted to also get your perspective so that we could input your perspective into ours and then make our views public. We intend to bring organised labour into the issue because. It is the people who are susceptible to injuries and accidents, and those people are primarily members of organised labour. Our belief also is that the organised labour will not fold their hands or play the ostrich and believe this does not involve them because eventually, it is the members of labour, the workers that will be affected.

“So, we are also bringing them on board in our advocacy. In the next two, or three days we will be writing to the Minister of Finance to let him know the critical stakeholders of the fund are in alignment and that contributions from employers to the NSITF are not revenue to the government.”

He further threw the support of NECA behind the Fund’s effort to prosecute defaulting employers as well as others who falsify records to under-declare contributions or obstruct access to employers’ registers.