*Somefun charges employers to join
The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) has paid injured workers about N835 million in the past two years.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive of the Fund, Adebayo Somefun, who disclosed this in Abuja yesterday at the 2018 edition of the Abuja Trade Fair, urged all employers to embrace the scheme towards enhancing the productivity of their workers.
Giving the breakdown of the N835, 318, 858, 62Kobo payment, he said the total of N203million was paid out as health medical refund while death benefits gulped N261million and disability benefits was N74million. The Fund also paid N8million for loss of productivity for employers amongst other benefits.
The NSITF boss, who urged employers of labour to embrace the scheme, Somefun stressed that non-compliance is a breach of Section 73 of the Employees Compensation Act (ECA) 2010.
His explanation: “To access these benefits, the employer – government or private/individual is required to pay one percent (1%) of total payroll of the employees to the NSITF, and this is at no cost to the employee! Once that is done, it becomes the duty of NSITF to carry the burden which otherwise would have gone to the employer where there is a workplace injury, death or disability.”
He stressed that as a ‘no-fault’ scheme, the scheme covers all categories of workers in every sector of employment, adding, “as the law enabling the scheme stipulates, every organisation that employs even one worker is under statutory obligation to register for the ECS: these include domestic staff. It also emphasises that failure to do so amounts to a breach of the law.”
He further explained that the ECS covers compensation for injuries, mental stress, occupational diseases, hearing impairment, permanent or temporary disability and even vocational rehabilitation as well as covering for benefits of deceased employees whose families’ fortunes are upheld even after the passing away of their bread winners.
Somefun also revealed that so far the Fund has paid for 42 artificial limbs/parts to cater for workers who lost their limbs etc., which enables injured workers continue their duties.
He also hinted that the 42 beneficiaries of the artificial limbs/parts are currently being fitted and trained on how to move on with their lives.
According to him, there are another 298 injured employees that are placed on monthly or periodic payment, saying, “Those on periodic payments are employees still in their productive years of 55 and below who are no longer functioning effectively because of workplace/related injuries. Twenty (20) persons above the age of 55 years have been paid lump sums on a once-off basis.”
He disclosed that in order to cushion the burden on families of deceased employees who died in the course of work, the Fund has paid 41 lump sums for accidents/diseases resulting in death of the employees and is currently paying 226 families monthly benefits, one of which receives N1.5 million monthly.
He highlighted that an employee is a person employed by an employer under oral or written contract of employment whether on continuous part-time, temporary, apprenticeship or casual basis and includes a domestic servant who is not a member of the family of the employer including any person employed in the federal, state and local governments and any of the government agencies and in the formal and informal sectors of the economy.
Somefun submitted that when a worker knows that his future is secured in the case of injury while performing his functions, he has a deeper sense of commitment to the employer.
