By Victor AhiumaYoung

The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF, has spent not less than N6.6 billion on the payment of claims and compensation for 103,000 beneficiaries.

According to the fund, these include 111 persons assisted to their feet with artificial limbs, apart from  11 others  sent abroad for further medical treatment.

This came as NSITF informed that more employers and employees had keyed into its Employee’s Compensation Scheme, ECS, resulting in 145,000 employers and 7.4 million employees enrollment.

It disclosed while celebrating its winning the 2023 edition of the  Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association’s, NECA, Award in Best Service Delivery category.

A statement by the Fund’s General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Nwachukwu Godson, noted that while receiving the prize at NECA Annual Employers Excellence Award for 2023 in Lagos, NSITF’s Managing  Director, Maureen Allagoa, said  the honour would ginger the agency to greater heights.

She said: “it underscores the huge mileage the fund has lately  covered in the implementation of the Employees’ Compensation Scheme.”

Represented 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.

“The NECA award is simply a testimony  to all we have been doing lately. It is a mirror on 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. 

“This management executive 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 elated that Nigerians through this NECA Awards, which was meticulously conducted through a 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 in order 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 International Labour Organisation, ILO, Convention 102, including old age, unemployment, and family benefits, among others.

Innovations

“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 a number of 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 enrollees to over 145,000 employers and 7.4 million employees, while claims and compensations have reached to 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 N6.6 billion have been spent  on all of these.”

Allagoa said the Fund had 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 serves as a catalyst 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 enrollees.”

Vanguard News