The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has directed the management of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) to review its staff salary structure before the end of this month.
He spoke in Abuja weekend at the closing ceremony of a two-day management performance review of NSITF.
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Ngige also gave the agency a three-month ultimatum to automate all its operations.
“When in July 2020 the president approved the suspension and later removal of the former management of the NSITF after over three years in office, the fund’s savings was at a paltry sum of N2bn. The Acting Management of Kelly Nwagha, who bridged the gap for less than a year, moved the savings to N8bn. And in six months, the current management, under Mike Akabogu, has moved it to N17bn. The people they succeeded in office had only N2bn in the account, but left a liability, debts of over N30bn. Is that a good management?.
“This new management is worker-friendly unlike the politicians before them, they’ve not given themselves N10m for vacation with their spouses.
‘’Even though it’s there in the operational manual, I advised them it’s immoral for them to do so when some staff members cannot afford house rents, that the strategic reform they set for themselves must be all-inclusive and they paid heed.
‘’We discovered very sadly that the NSITF has not re-adjusted staff salary, but it’s not the fault of this management but of preceding ones who didn’t think about the lowly placed persons. We discovered it and have given them an ultimatum to do so by the end of January 2022.
“Other incentives will follow and will be tied to performance. If you improve your contributions before the end of March, all your allowances will be reviewed. So, all the staff must sit up. A new system is here to reward hard work. The era of clocking in 8:30 am to sleep and clock out 4pm is over,” he said.
