By Victor Ahiuma-Young

*Serves 1,786 pre-legal action notices, prosecutes 61 others

Employers’ poor  compliance with the Employee’s Compensation Scheme, ECS, following the Employee’s Compensation Act, ECA of 2010, is a source of concern to the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF, saddled with the responsibility of implementing the ECS.

About 13 years after ESC came into force, reports indicate that barely over seven million employees have been registered under the scheme.This is a far cry from the estimated 50 million working population in Nigeria.

As expected, NSITF is not taking lightly the recalcitrance of employers who have refused to comply with the ECA and enroll their employees into the scheme. Within the ambit of ECA, the Fund has taken steps to enforce compliance.

Vanguard gathered that NSITF is presently prosecuting no fewer than 61 recalcitrant employers in courts across the country and with over 1,786 non-complying employers served pre-legal action notices.However, the Fund believes that the recalcitrance of employers is due to the soft sanction in the ECA hence NSITF is seeking a more stringent law to force employers to comply.

The ECA 2010 states that an employer who fails to pay contributions as and when due, or neglects to comply fully with the provisions of the ECA commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to the following penalties: “(A).  Imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or fine not less than N100,000, or both imprisonment and fine for an individual;  (B) A fine of not less than N1,000,000 for a corporate body and in addition, each director, manager or officer of the corporate body shall be deemed to have committed an offence and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or a fine of N100,000 or both; and “(C) A penalty in an amount equal to 10 per cent of the unpaid assessment.“

Strigent laws

In an effort to boost employers’ compliance with the ECA, NSITF, among others, is seeking more stringent measures to compel employers of labour to comply with the act. 

The Fund said while some employers in the private sector had keyed into the ECS and paid the mandatory one per cent of total emolument of workers to the scheme, many others had refused to comply.

Its General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Mrs. Ijeoma Oji-Okoronkwo, who disclosed this while speaking on NSITF’s programmes and achievements at the Labour Writers Association of Nigeria, LAWAN, Forum in Lagos, said:  “We hope that the planned amendment to the act will provide for more stringent sanctions because as at today, the sanctions are very weak. However, we are in court with some of the recalcitrant employers.”

She said the objectives of the Compensation Act among others are to take care of workers, compensate them for any accident in work places and to take care of families of deceased workers, adding that NSITF has been doing this for the last 12 years.

According to Mrs. Okoronkwo, the Act provides for the Fund to provide for the children of any deceased worker until the last child graduates and the wife is not left behind unless she remarries.

She said the law covers workers in the formal and informal sectors of the economy noting that while NSITF is committed to the implementation of the ECS, the Federal Government must come to the assistance of NSITF with Acts compelling employers to pay the mandatory one percent contribution.

Mrs. Okoronkwo at the meeting said the organisation had remained diligent in its responsibility which is the processing and payment of compensation to injured employees.

According to her: “From July 2011 to June 2023, the organisation processed and paid 99,678 claims and compensations.  In the year 2023 alone, from January to June, we have paid 8,959 claims under various contingencies, including medical expenses, loss of productivity, death benefits, disability benefits, retirement benefits and further medical treatment.” 

She  noted that their compensation is not restricted to cash only,  saying:  “We have provided prostheses as part of our rehabilitative compensation programme to over 100 employees which has enabled them to continue to live their normal lives again.”

The General Manager informed that in the case of death, the organisation pays 90 per cent of what the breadwinner was earning before he died “for the family to maintain at least the close lifestyle they were living before the incident. This is paid until the last child of the deceased is up to 21 years.”Mrs Okoronkwo, however, urged employees to encourage their employers to be part of the scheme so that they can be covered because the employees are the ones that bear the risk.

Deduction from MDAs

She said President Buhari-led administration approved a one per cent deduction from source from all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, MDAs, that are treasury funded. So with a one per cent deduction from employers, an employee is covered under this scheme.

Giving details on how the scheme works, NSITF’s General and Regional Manager, Lagos Zonal Office, Abdul-Lateef Musa, among others, said: “In every case of an injury or disabling occupational disease to an employee in a workplace within the scope of this Act, the employee or in case of death of a dependant, shall within 14 days of the occurrence or receipt of the information of the occurrence, inform the employer by giving information of the diseased or injury to the manager, supervisor, first-aid attendant, agent in charge of the work where the injury occurred or other appropriate representatives of the employer, and information which includes, the name of the employee, the time and place of the occurrence and in ordinary language, the nature and cause of the disease or injury if known.”