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By Joseph Atobisi
As a labour activist, I have been closely monitoring the lingering industrial crisis in the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) of late, involving the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) and the National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Employees (NUBIFE).
For the benefit of Nigerians who are not aware, the NSITF is the agency that implements the Employee Compensation Act, ECA, 2010 and by that Act, employers in both public and private sectors are supposed to pay one per cent of the emoluments of their staff into the social protection Fund.
The contributions are to be used as premium or insurance fund to compensate workers or staff for accidents, injuries, disabilities and even deaths that occur in the cause of their work.
Going by reports in the media, the major grouse of the NSITF workers is the delay in the implementation of their salary adjustment by the management of agency.
A few days ago, the aggrieved workers embarked on protest, shutting down the activities of the agency nationwide, whereas the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment had apprehended the dispute in line with Section 18 of the Trade Dispute Act, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004. Besides the fact that the Ministry is the arbiter in labour disputes in Nigeria, it is the supervising ministry in charge of the NSITF.
However, in what looked like a twist in the industrial unrest in the fund, an overwhelming majority of the workers under the aegis of Stability Group, not only dissociated themselves from the protest by ASSBIFI, but further threatened to withdraw their membership of the union, in line with the ILO principle of Freedom of Association and Section 40 of 1999 Constitution as amended.
They accused the leader of the NSITF unit of ASSBIFI, Bala Tijani of drifting from the crusade for better welfare for workers to politically motivated agitation, witch-hunt and mischief. The Stability Group comprises 3,700 workers of the fund employed from 2016-2023, who the Bala group is pushing for the termination of their appointment with the fund.
Having offered the background to this article, I wish to begin my submissions here by noting that the NSITF is a parastatal of the Federal Government. I am aware that the issue of salary review and the other disputed issues were not new and were being effectively handled by the current management under Mrs Maureen Allagoa (Esq.) more than its predecessors. Hence, the management should be accorded support, rather than the distraction constituted by Bala and other renegades.
It is public knowledge that Bala and four other union members were a part of the making of the new wages with the NSIWC based on the approval to match NSITF with TETFund, of course, predicated on ability to pay. Why didn’t Bala and cohorts confront the NSIWC? They accepted, only to realise six months later that consolidated salaries is not good. Wages in the public service – from the president to the last man in the service – is consolidated, including transport, housing, utilities, and lunch. Only special allowances are not. Bala knows this. Yet, he decided to incite the members.
Also, contrary to the claims of the protesters on the remittance of deducted taxes, the management tendered evidence to show that their current taxes and pensions are up to date.They also showed evidence of agreed plans for remittance on monthly installment, of the remaining arrears of the 2013- 2017 in the next few months.
Regarding the issue of staff demotion through the merger of Deputy Manager and Manager, it is on record that the union Exco led by Bala was part of all discussions and even signed the report and request by the former Managing Director, Mike Akabogu to the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) that subsequently froze further promotion for 2021/ 2022, on the condition that the fund reverts to the Public Service nine-tier wage structure. They also froze any wage review in NSITF until these two conditions are met.
The management on the instruction of the supervising ministry set up a mixed committee, comprising the management and the representatives of the two unions. The unions followed up to the parent ministry and NSIWC to defend the report before it was implemented and the embargo on promotions lifted.
Please Bala, was it whose fault that some of the workers benefitted from the promotion exercises and others did not? What else if not mischief will make you (Bala) to conceal the fact that the then Minister, Sen. Chris Ngige refused to agree to some points in the report including the merger of Deputy Manager and Manager and referred the union back to Congress only for the union leader to emerge with the resolution to defend the merger?
The issue of recruitment of staff since 2020 and promotion is one that fully exposed the nepotism that Bala and cabal have been trying hard to disguise. The recruitment of qualified persons to fill vacant positions where the existing staff members fail on grounds of competence cannot be faulted. The promotion of deserving staff members who passed exams and turning down others who failed the promotion exam or were not promoted because of lack of vacancies can also not be faulted.
I do not see the basis whatsoever to witch hunt properly recruited staff members whose appointments passed statutory endorsements from the Head of Service of the Federation, the Ministry of Labour and Employment Budget Office, and the Federal Character Commission, the final approval authority and the President, in the case of Management Exco.
Regardless of the brouhaha over the alleged grievances of the unions, I still could not fathom the motive behind the demand by the protesters for the stoppage of the ongoing Electronic NSITF project (E-NSIFT). The E-NSITF is the digitisation of the services of NSITF, which is in line with the government’s policy on ease of doing business. As earlier stated, the NSITF is an agency of the Federal Government, which is running an e-government policy. E-government refers to the use of information and communication technologies in government operations, access to government data, interactions between government and citizens, and interactions between government and external organisations.
Based on my independent findings, the E-NSITF will ease business management processes in the fund and increase efficiency in daily operational input and output. The contributors can now easily get compliance certificates and have enhanced access to entitlements, with an approved feedback, both for the Fund and its customers.
Most importantly, it would promote transparency and accountability in the affairs of the fund. The Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the E-NSITF in June 2022. Prior to the approval, the fund had suffered humongous revenue losses. All these leakages will be plugged with the conclusion of the E-NSITF project. This explanation was offered in a statement released sometime ago by the General Manager, Corporate Affairs of the Fund, Ijeoma Okoronkwo.
Going back to memory lane, Okoronkwo recalled that the E-NSITF had been on the drawing board since 2015, but it took the rejuvenated management and the parent ministry to take it head on in 2020 in line with FEC directive and hence, it received all necessary endorsements from the Parastatal’s Tenders Board to the Ministerial Tenders Board and finally, the FEC. She added that the FEC contract price came with a Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) review that saved a lot of money for the government and the fund.
Change is an inevitable part of life which happens so that people can make progress. In today’s world, technology is the key driver of change. Hence, I cannot understand the fuss about E-NSITF if not resistance to change. Every aspect of human endeavour has been impacted by advances in electronic technologies. For instance, the world economy is no longer brick and mortar, but now technology driven. In the present day, economic activities take place on the Internet, the World Wide Web and block chain technologies.
This trend has been accelerated by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Have we suddenly forgotten the role played by technology in the prevention and control of the deadly pandemic, which is still much around?
Electronic technologies have impacted tremendously on the growth of the financial sector in Nigeria, bringing about fundamental changes in the operations of banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions in the country. Today, anybody who owns an account in a Nigerian bank has a Bank Verification Number (BVN). We do transactions daily on our smart phones. We use automated teller machines (ATMs) and point of sale systems (POS) for our monetary transactions, via dedicated payment cards issued to us by our financial institutions.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently introduced the cashless policy.
Besides the banking sector, many other sectors in Nigeria, have since keyed into the digital transformation. We apply and pay for our national drivers’ licenses online. Every Nigerian has a digital national identity card, with a national identity number (NIN). The just concluded election in Nigeria was conducted using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and results uploaded real time (not in all cases though), to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV). We obtain our national passports online. I can go on and on. The Federal Government recently approved N2.8 billion for National Population Commission (NPC) to procure software for the conduct of the first digital census in Nigeria in May this year.
The hullabaloo over E-NSITF is nothing but resistance to change and anachronism. Change is always inevitable, but so is resistance to change. People are unwilling to adapt to new circumstances or ways of doing things. This resistance is often rooted in the fear of the unknown. But, every organisation must always strive to adapt to change if it intends to succeed.
In conclusion, the agitation in NSITF is only an attempt to heat up the fund by the union and their external sponsors to cause the dissolution of a performing management team. It is neither in the interest of the workers nor the fund.
• Atobisi, a labour activist, writes from Abuja
