NSITF Fund Hits N37bn
From Juliana Taiwo in Abuja
The pool of fund of the National Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) has risen to N36.62 billion as at July 1 this year, Managing Director/CEO of the Fund, Alhaji Rufa'i Mohammed, has said.
This figure represents an increase of about 97 percent when compared to the N920 million in the purse of the defunct National Provident Fund (NPF), which NSITF replaced.
Mohammed, who made the revelation at the 10th year anniversary press briefing in Abuja yesterday, also said the combined scheme of NPF and NSITF has registered 41,271 contributing organisations out of which 21,034, equilavent of 51 per cent were registered between 1994 and 2004.
Similarly, he said, a total of 4,269,538 employees have been registered as members out of which 1,439,091 were registered between 1994 and this year.
Mohammed, however, regretted that some organsisations have continued to default in remitting the deductions made on the salaries of their employees and assured that those found guilty will be given a grace period to pay up failing which legal action would be instituted against them.
He frowned at the practice where employers make deductions and do not remit same to the Fund and observed that such anomaly deny the workers of their benefits and documentations.
"We have been working assiduously here to make sure everybody who is supposed to comply complies and pay their contributions on behalf of their employees. With the Pension Act coming in, we need to move on the fast track to make sure that every employer has paid the money due to their employees so that we can credit them correctly under the new Pension Act," he said.
Also, he said the Fund has finalised arrangements to despatch letters to the defaulters and inform them of impending legal action if they do not comply by paying monies oustanding to them.
"We are moving ahead to make sure that we now do inspection of the records of all employers. We are doing this inspection between now and the time when the Pension Fund Administrators will be introduced because of the transition arrangements. If they don't pay, we must undertake to write a breach against them so that the employees are covered and nobody loses any amount that is due to him before he moves to the PFAs," he said
Mohammed said that the Fund has so far paid out N20.4 million monthly to about 3,767 pensioners in the country while its investment portfolio as at end of June 2004 stood at N33.82 billion.
Speaking on the transition of NSITF under the new Pension Act, he said the Fund would float its own Pension Fund Administrative arm with which it would compete with other PFAs in the country while also continuing to provide social security services.
He said that any contributor to the NSITF under the repealed Pension Act would continue with the Fund until the next five years before such a person could pull out to join any PFA of their choice.
He disclosed that the Fund is being re-positioned to make it the strongest and most virile Pension Fund Administrator in the country.
Part of the re-positioning of the Fund, he said, includes investing in some of the leading commercial banks in the country in the light of the N25 billion new recapitalisation policy of the Central Bank.
He said in the process of repositioning NSITF, the organisation would have to right-size its work force, adding that the Fund could not hope to achieve its new vision with its present structure.
He pointed out that the management had been holding series of meetings with workers in the organisation with a view to carrying out the re-structuring of the Fund.
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