By Joan Nwagwu
THE NIGERIA Customs Service (NCS) and the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) have agreed to set up a joint committee toward the application of compensation scheme and resolve the backlog of contributions between the Fund and NCS.
Mr Bashir Adeniyi, Comptroller General of Customs, said this during an advocacy visit by Mr Oluwaseun Faleye, Managing Director of the NSITF on Tuesday in Abuja.
Adeniyi said the NSITF was one of the pivotal intervention agencies, through which President Bola Tinubu intends to deliver his Renewed Hope to Nigerians.
According to him, social investment programmes like the Employees’ Compensation Scheme (ECS) of the NSITF is one of the areas of intervention that Mr President actually wants to use to deliver on his renewed hope to Nigerians.
“Therefore, the more effective and more impactful the NSITF is, the more it is able to contribute to the welfare of the generality of Nigerians. Welfare is a very important thing for us in the Customs.
“We do not pay lip service to it. We have a full-fledged unit that attends to the welfare of officers and men, and that is why we make an effort to participate in the contributory fund like the ECS.
“We want an improved welfare service for all our officers and men. We want to promote workplace safety, and we want to be sure that officers who suffer accidents in the course of work will be adequately compensated.
“I therefore welcome wholeheartedly, suggestions that we set up a technical team that is composed of officers on both sides to look at all the issues that have been raised,” he said.
Adeniyi said that it was important to discuss compliance to ensure that the officers feel the impact of what they are contributing.
While acknowledging the place of the NSITF mandate in accident prevention in workplaces through its Occupational Safety and Health activities, he expressed willingness to partner with the fund.
“It will be our pleasure to invite your officers to come around and do some inspections and assessment and see what advice they can give to us.
“This is in terms how we can make our workplace safer not only for our officers but for visitors that do business with us,” he said.
He however said that he was confident that the joint team would resolve all the grey areas in the backlog of contributions so as to pave the way for deepened collaboration between the two agencies.
He added that at the end, they will achieve two objectives: “NCS will be more compliant and the NSITF will create more impact in our welfare and our operations.”
Earlier, the Managing Director of NSITF, Oluwaseun Faleye, commended the Comptroller-General for the contributions of the service to the economic growth of the nation.
He called for the deepening of the relationship between the customs and the NSITF.
He said that NSITF was mandated to prevent accidents through their occupational safety and health programmes in workplaces.
He also said that the fund would provide claims and compensation where work-related accidents, disabilities, disease, or death occur.
“We have been doing this for a number of years, and thankfully, Nigerian Customs has been a very veritable partner on this endeavour,” Faleye said.
He said that the Fund had over the years been receiving contributions from the Customs Service, while equally paying claims arising from death, disability, and medical expenses refund to it.
He said that the NSITF has at present, a scheduled cumulative payment of a huge sum of money in benefits for the staff of the Nigeria Customs.
“One of the ways that our relationship can be deepened is through collaborative efforts from our end.
“Beyond the payment of claims and compensation, we are also mandated to create awareness and promote work place safety.
“We do this through various means; trainings, workplace inspections, occupational safety and health awareness among others.
“I feel it is critical that we enhance this, knowing that we are committed to providing these services to Nigerian Customs as part of the benefits of being registered and contributing to the Fund,”he said.
He said that it time to set up a technical collaborative platform where all of the issues that may exist between the Fund and Nigeria Customs could be discussed. (NAN)
