No going back on job cut at NSITF, says MD
From Segun Ayeoyenikan
(Abuja)
DESPITE the furore generated by a plan to sack workers at the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), the management has vowed not to rescind the decision.
The NSITF Managing Director and Chief Executive, Ahmed Mohammed said there was no going back on the plan to reduce staff strength.
But the workers have given the NSITF a 14-day ultimatum to rescind the decision and instead improve on the welfare of staff.
At a press briefing to mark the 10th anniversary of the agency in Abuja yesterday, Mohammed said the agency had resolved to carry out a job cut because it could not take care of the present number of workers in the new pension scheme.
His words: "There is no way the NSITF would carry its present load of workers to the new dispensation of Contributory Pension Act, which has just been put in place. What the management of NSITF is doing currently is called management change.
"The new pension act has made it imperative for us to look inward and make adjustments both in the size of work-force and the injection of new methods of efficiency into the system towards meeting up with new challenges before the NSITF".
The managing director claimed that earlier, management had secured the understanding of its workers' union, adding that the new development must have arisen on account of lack of patience from the protesting workers.
He also said that the plan to retrench workers in the agency did not start with his administration.
"I met the resolution of the Board of NSITF to retrench workers two years back, before I resumed as the chief executive of the Fund. I was the one who stopped the exercise," he said.
According to him, the implementation of the new Pension Act requires the NSITF to compete for the administration of workers' pension along with other pension administrators, which would be licensed by the National Pension Commission (NPC).
Mohammed, who gave account of the NSITF's stewardship, especially since 1994, gave himself a pass mark.
"Through the process of compliance enforcement, the NSITF schemes were able to collect about N36.62 billion between 1994 and 2004 from contributors," he said.
NSITF took over the administration of workers pension from the defunct National Providence Fund (NPF) in 1994.
Concerning the payments of applicant claimants, the managing director boasted that "the scheme has been able to pay benefits both in lump sum grants and monthly pension to contributors in the last ten years."
"The payment of benefits is placed as top priority by management, with specific emphasis on field (branch) offices to settle due claims promptly and definitely within a maximum period of two weeks from the claim date," he added.
