By Victor Ahiuma-Young

NIGERIA Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF, yesterday called on employers in the country to prioritize the occupational health and safety of their employees, and key into the Employee’s Compensation Act, ECA, to ensure that injured workers were no longer abandoned to their fate.

This came as Nigeria Employers Consultative Association, NECA, warned employers against flouting the agreed definition of payroll in the payment of the one percent required by the ECA, saying any employer that failed to respect the rule would have himself to blame.

Speaking at NSITF-NECA SWIP Year 2016 and problem Solving Clinic on the ECA 2010, Acting Managing Director of NSITF, Mr. Ismail Agaka, said as at yesterday, while over 51, 000 employers had registered with the scheme, about 6,004,015 employees had been covered.

According to him, if those registered were matched with the number of employers and employees in the country, it was obvious that was still a lot of work to be done to get more participation.

He assured that the management of NSITF was going to intensify the drive and push for more participation, saying, “so far, we have registered over 51,000 employers, 6,004,015 employees. But when you juxtapose this with labour force and others, you will realize that this has not gone far.”

Earlier Director-General of NECA, Mr. Segun Osinowo, recalled the controversy surrounding the definition of payroll deduction into the scheme, and said to resolve it, among other measures, a joint committee between employers and NSITF was set up to arrive at agreed definition of the payroll and mode of deduction among others.

Mr. Agaka disclosed that the scheme had paid over N700 million as compensation to over 6,000 workers that sustained various degrees of injuries in the course of work.

While stressing the importance of the ECA, the Acting Managing Director added “We have a family whose breadwinner died and after the computation of the entitlements, we are now paying up to N1.3million monthly to the beneficiaries. That represents 90 per cent of the last income of the deceased breadwinner”

Earlier, Director-General of NECA, Mr. Segun Osinowo, recalled the controversy surrounding the definition of payroll deduction into the scheme, and said to resolve it, among other measures, a joint committee between employers and NSITF was set up to arrive at agreed definition of the payroll and mode of deduction among others.

According to the committee had finished its work and a Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, would be signed today, saying once the MOU was signed, any employers that flouted the MOU, would have itself to blame.

He said: “We are a going to sign the memorandum that gives acceptable definition of pay roll, any employers who refuses to comply and play by the rules as agreed will be on its own because we are convinced of the process.”