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The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) has clarified that the Fund did not reject the Finance Ministry’s 40% deduction of employers’ payments at any point, contrary to media reports.
It had earlier been reported that the Managing Director of the NSITF, Maureen Allagoa, in her New Year speech, protested the Ministry of Finance’s 40% operating surplus deduction of N1.4 billion from employers’ payments, which was made in accordance with the Fiscal Responsibility and Finance Act of 2020, even though NSITF is not a revenue-generating organisation.
In a statement released by the General Manager for Corporate Affairs, Nwachukwu Godson, the Fund emphasised that Allagoa, in her speech, reiterated an earlier request made on October 3, 2023, to Simon Lalong, the former Minister of Labour and Employment, for a review of the NSITF’s inclusion in the Fiscal Responsibility and Finance Act of 2020. This request was made in light of the NSITF’s unique status as a non-treasury funded organisation that holds contributors’ money in trust.
“For the avoidance of doubt, this is what the Managing Director’s statement released on New Year Day stated, that the NSITF stands at the threshold of social and economic change and poised to overcome its challenges as the custodian of social security,” he said.
Godson quoted the NSITF MD: “Amidst our accomplishments, we are grappling with challenges impeding the fulfilment of our mandate, one of which is the deduction of 40% amounting to N1.4bn from employer contributions by the Ministry of Finance as an operating surplus in line with the Fiscal Responsibility and Finance Act of 2020, despite the fact that the NSITF is not a revenue-generating agency.
‘The NSITF is a tripartite agency holding funds-contributions in trust for the benefits of employees under the ECS and without an operating surplus. The NSITF is also not treasury-funded and does not draw from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation and therefore seeks for a review and removal from the schedule of the Fiscal responsibility Act.’”
Speaking more about the Fund’s plans for the next year, Allagoa stated that the Tinubu administration’s plans to reduce poverty directly impacts the NSITF’s mandate.
She continued, saying that the agency will build on its 2023 successes and increase the proportion of the population covered by the social security programme. “The Fund will open new branches and service centres in 2024 to extend social services to every Nigerian in accordance with the social inclusion standards of the ILO Convention 102.”
Allagoa, in her speech, had said, “We are expanding our operations into the informal sector and other unreached areas in dire need of our services so as to save more people from lacerating social conditions.
“We will create new branches to this end as well as build service delivery centres to be activated in select regions as pilot, in the first quarter of 2024. The focus is to reach Nigerians in the remote hinterland while reducing commuting distance for our staff members.”
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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