The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) has made it clear that it did not object the 40 per cent to the Ministry of Finance’s 40% employer contribution deduction.
As stated in the media, NSITF does not have the authority to reject the deduction, according to a statement made in Abuja by the fund’s general manager of corporate affairs, Nwachukwu Godson.
According to him, the fund was merely restating a request that had been made on October 3, 2023, to the former minister of labor and employment, Simon Lalong, for a review of the NSITF’s inclusion in the Fiscal Responsibility and Finance Act of 2020 due to its unique status as a non-treasury funded organization that holds contributor funds in trust.
The statement reads in parts, “For the avoidance of doubt, this is what the managing director’s statement released on New Year Day stated: The NSITF stands at the threshold of social and economic change, and poised to overcome its challenges as the custodian of social security”.
“Amidst our accomplishments, we are grappling with challenges impeding the fulfilment of our mandate, one of which is the deduction in 2022, of 40 per cent amounting to N1.4 billion 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,” he said
