Photo caption: NSITF MD/CE Mr. Oluwaseun Faleye and Nigeria Customs CG Alhaji Bashir Adewale Adeniyi (MFR) exchange handshake during NSITF’s advocacy visit on Employees’ Compensation Scheme

The Nigeria Customs Service(NCS) and the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund(NSITF) have agreed to set up a joint committee to resolve the backlog of contributions owed the Fund by the Service.

The two agencies reached the agreement during an advocacy visit by the Managing Director of the NSITF, Oluwaseun Faleye, on the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi today in Abuja.

Speaking at the meeting which also had the top command of the Customs Service as well as the executive and management of the NSITF in attendance, the Comptroller General declared the NSITF as one of the pivotal intervention agencies, through which the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu intends to deliver his Renewed Hope to Nigerians.

He said, “social investment programmes like the Employees’ Compensation Scheme(ECS) of the NSITF is one of the areas of intervention that Mr. President actually want 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 . There are other ones that we do – all speaking to the welfare of officers.

“I want to see your visit as the beginning of a better cooperation, collaboration between the NSITF and the Nigerian Custom Service, and the outcome can only be one thing . 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, to have a second look at the numbers that have been mentioned here to actually see what has happened in those 11-13 years where we are not recorded to have made any contributions.

“Reconciliation will be very, very important to us so that we know how to re-schedule the payments if we are found liable . It is also important that as we talk compliance that our officers must feel the impact of what we are contributing to.”

Acknowledging the place of the NSITF mandate in accident prevention in workplaces through its Occupational Safety and Health activities, the Customs boss added, “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 in terms how we can make our workplace safer not only for our officers but for visitors that do business with us”

He further expressed gratitude for the visit and said he was confident that the joint team will resolve all the grey areas in the backlog of contributions so as to pave the way for deepened collaboration between the two agencies, saying “ at the end, we will achieve two objectives: the Customs will be more compliant and the NSITF will create more impact in our welfare and our operations.”

Mr. Faleye had earlier in his speech commended the Comptroller General for the contributions of the service to the economic growth of the nation while calling for the deepening of the relationship between the customs and the NSITF.

“As you may be aware, NSITF is mandated to prevent accidents through our occupational safety and health programmes in workplaces and to 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 asserted.

He said 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, adding 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. He therefore called for more collaboration between the agencies.

“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 and 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.

“We also feel it is high time we set up a technical collaborative platform where all of the issues that may exist between the Fund and Nigeria Customs can be discussed . We are open to that initiative. My team is ready and available to engage with your technical team .

“We need an open engagement to enable us effectively carry out other aspects of our mandate because beyond the payment of claims and compensation, we are actually more interested in preventing those work related accidents. They reduce what we pay as compensation or claims, thus, a win-win for both parties.”

Nwachukwu Godson, General Manager, Corporate Affairs, NSITF, in a statement, quoted Faleye to have said further that deepening of engagement will enable the NSITF inspection officers establish the staff strength and commensurate contributions based on 1% of the emolument of the staff of any agency in line with the ECS mandate . “ In this way, we will eliminate estimate or guesstimate and promote transparency.

On the NSITF entourage to the Customs were the Executive Director of Finance and Investment, Adegoke Adedeji, Executive Director, Administration, Prof Gabriel Okenwa and the Executive Director, Operations, Hon. Mojisolaoluwa Ali-Macaulay and other management staff of the Fund.