By Godson Nwachukwu
A lot is lately taking place at the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF). For an agency where every effort to reposition had all largely ended up in futility, the new steps by the current management appear to be drawing a bold line between its past and the present. This has elicited optimism that something good is sprouting out of Bethlehem. An author I can’t place at the moment defined a leader as “someone who can see how things can be improved and who rallies people towards that better vision.” That appears to explain the change at the agency that had hugged headlines all for the wrong reasons.
Even before the Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Lalong expressed his intention to unbundle the NSITF for efficiency while on a familiarization visit to the agency on October 3, 2023, the management despite challenges not unconnected to the wrong ways of the past, had tried to keep head above distractions to chart a new course for the agency. For instance, it has since 2022, introduced a computer based promotion examinations, putting an end to corruption that riddled such exercise in the past. The process was further reformed during the promotion exercise of July 2023 in two ways. While the results of APER assessment were released before the CBT examination, the CBT scores were instantly availed each candidate in all centres at the touch of the final submission button on the keyboard. Staff members never had it so swift , so good.
At another level, staff issues such as salaries and promotion, including arrears of pension which have always been vexed, were tackled head on. Forthwith and in line with commitment to decent work, the management reviewed the staff condition of service which was done 29 years ago as well as implemented a new salary structure approved by the National Salaries Income and Wages Commission. It further cleared a backlog of arrears of gratuity of retired staff members while resolving an age-long pension disagreement with the consequent withdrawal of a suit that has lingered in the court. This restored calm and equable industrial milieu needed for productivity.
The concerted effort of the management also led to May 15, 2023 approval by the Federal Executive Council of President Buhari for a compulsory 1% deduction from the total emoluments of workers in the MDAs in compliance with the Employee Compensation Act. This led to further action by the Federal Government with a recent circular by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, directing its implementation. Equally, there is a digitization project, which when completed, will not only ease the operations of the NSITF, it will also enhance accountability and transparency. Notwithstanding, the ease of securing compliance certificates has largely improved.
Indeed, one common feature which is consistent with the management is its ability to reposition and effortlessly key the operations of the fund into the policy direction of the federal government. The NSITF is thus, one of the first agencies to embrace the Performance Management System in line with the directive of the Head of Service of the federation, hence replacing the deficient Annual Performance Evaluation Report(APER).
It has similarly re-aligned its operations for an optimal realization of the 8-Point Agenda of the Federal Government in social security and poverty alleviation. Speaking recently at the New Performance Management System Implementation Workshop for the management of the Fund in Abuja, the Managing Director of the NSITF, Maureen Allagoa Esq. said the agency must double down in the face of cascading challenges in the world of work, to effectively meet up with the Federal government target on social security. According to her, “of the eight-point-agenda of the Federal Government – poverty eradication, job creation and growth speak directly to labour and employment. And as a key agency of the Ministry of Labour, the NSITF occupies a central position in ensuring that this national objectives are met.” In her words, “if we must remain relevant as the nation’s cardinal social security agency, we shall leave no gaps in ensuring that we contribute our quota.
Part of the target of the Employee Compensation, lest we forget, is to grow a resilient national workforce without which optimum productivity, growth and social inclusion will be made more difficult.” She added that to achieve this, the operations of the NSITF must be rejigged to key in effective performance evaluation. Moving the talk, the fund re-engineered its Management Performance Review into a monthly online session, quarterly regional session and bi-annual all encompassing meeting.
With the successful regional MPR on October 18, 2023, the monthly online version came in its wake on November 15, 2023. The result is trickling in. High level interface among its over 5000 staff and management has further been strengthened, peer review energized, with the weak links across branches tying up the loose ends. With the monthly interaction also, far flung branches came alive, pushing the ECS to the end of the nation’s world of work and delivering its abundant benefits to Nigerians. It is no more only about the successful branches in Lagos and Port Harcourt with their socio-geographic advantages, the monthly MPR shifted attention to the successful exploits of hitherto unsung branches in Yola, Ibadan and Uyo. This tallies with what the Fund’s Executive Director of Operations, Modu Gana referred to as the re-evaluation of fund’s strategies through “incisive peer review among the management team at all the branches to enable the weak links pick up productive approaches that proved successful in other branches.” Gana, a former top banker, emphasized the import of free occupational safety and health programmes targeted at accident prevention at work places, urging all branches to scale up the exercise as a cardinal service of the NSITF.
“It is important that all branches scale up occupational safety programmes which we provide free to all employers of labour in the public and private sector to help secure work environment and provide safety to the Nigerian workers which is core to our mandate.This free accident prevention programme, central to our mandate is also key to the heart of employers at a time some Nigerians are skeptical about government institutions,” Gana said while addressing the first monthly online MPR. Recall that new operational buses for regional and branch offices were lately procured.
In another direction, the fund is exploring new platforms to unleash on the world of work, the sub items of the ILO Convention 102 such as old age, unemployment and family benefits which are integral to social security. It is also engaging its vast national network of staff to help generate social security data, store and share them with other relevant agencies of government.
So many phases of the changing face of the NSITF, even though they are largely relegated for negative news! Beyond the streaming negative headlines about the fund, many Nigerians are unaware that NSITF has registered over 145,000 employers and 7.4 million employees into the scheme and has also paid claims and compensation to over 103,000 beneficiaries, including 111 persons who received artificial limbs and 11 beneficiaries who were sent abroad for further medical treatment- all at a total cost of over N6.6 billion. Equally in pursuit of social inclusion, the NSITF has moved into the Informal sector to bring regular Nigerians such as traders, mechanics, hairdressers, market men and women, carpenters, and others to benefit from the scheme. The fund thrives.
*Nwachukwu writes from Abuja