The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF has reacted to an online publication, which among others accused its executive management of job racketeering, dismissing the allegations as falsehood deliberately fabricated by detractors.

In a statement Tuesday, signed by its General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Nwachukwu Godson, the NSITF stated that its letter of 25th January 2024 to the Supervising Hon. Minister of Labour and Employment was, in view of a process whose cycle can take a year or more to consummate.

The statement said- “The NSITF made a request to the supervising Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment for the replacement of vacant positions in the absence of a board of the agency as required by law. This is the first step.

“The rigours of the process which must adhere to the extant civil service guidelines will further stretch through the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation for the approval of our Annual Authorized Establishment; Letter of Clearance from the Budget Office of the Federation, another letter from the Federal Character Commission for a Waver not to advertise, before the candidates are interviewed and finally back to the Federal Character Commission for a Certificate of Compliance. The process will usually take as long as a year or more to turn full circle.”

The NSITF also stated that the allegation that it is “planning to buy a bullet-proof SUV Jeep for the Hon. Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Hon. Nkiruka Onyejocha” is untrue.

“Here, we are dealing with a pernicious rumour, a fabrication whose architects are incapable of details or an iota of evidence, therefore, a birdbrain requiring no further proof.”

Equally on the alleged staff promotion stagnation and other welfare issues, the NSITF stated that it has since 2022 introduced a computer-based promotion examinations that ended the corruption that riddled such exercise in the past.

“Our promotion examination process was further reformed in July 2023 with the results of the APER assessment released before the CBT examination. The CBT scores were also instantly availed to each candidate in all the centres on the touch of the final submission button! Our staff members never had it, so swift, so good!

“Overall, in 2022 promotion examination, a total of 1,032 staff between the ranks of Officer II to Senior Manager were promoted while 129 others were promoted to either Assistant General Manger or Deputy General Manager.

“Equally in 2023 promotion examination, 1671 staff ranging from Officer II to the principal manager were promoted. This is the highest promotion ever in the history of the fund. The management cadre examination could not be held because of the grey areas over which the former Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Simon Lalong set up a special committee to look into.

“Additionally, in line with commitment to decent work, the management reviewed the Staff Conditions of Service emplaced 29 years ago and implemented a new consolidated salary structure as approved by the National Salaries Income and Wages Commission further clearing a backlog of arrears of gratuity of retired staff members, further keeping the schedule of payment as and when due.

“We boldly also removed the disparity in payment between a category of our staff that are based in Abuja Federal Capital and those in other locations in the country.

“ At another level, it is important to add that the NSITF is up to date in remitting the staff housing deductions to the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, hence, preposterous for anyone to accuse the management of sitting on staff welfare and stagnating their promotion.

The NSITF further adjudged the allegation on e-NSITF as bordering on ranking ignorance or deliberate but futile effort to mislead the public. “There is no such thing as an N15B contract payment for the project. It is rather a Private Partnership Project with a concessionary period of 15 years within which the concessionaire company will inject the sum of N15b.

“At this instance therefore, we urge the known but unseen sponsors and propagators of this mischief to come clean on their unstated reasons for the re-occurring, but worn-out blackmail which takes an unchanging pattern, rearing its ugly head, each time a crucial decision towards the repositioning of the fund is to be made.

“The NSITF Executive Management will certainly not yield to this new gale of blackmail and will continue to do what is right including the right deductions of personal income taxes in line with the Finance Act, 2022 towards the re-engineering of the Fund as the apex social security agency.

“Lest we forget- the initial impulse of the NSITF is to ignore this sheer irresponsible journalism of a blog that neither sought concurring collaboration before going to bed with falsehood nor leave a column for comments on its platform. What with a poorly written statement issued by an amorphous self-claiming civil society group, with ghost membership and the story itself written without a byline!

“The NSITF does not respond to faceless groups, but our history has imposed on us enough reason to clear any doubt as to the direction of the current Management of the fund.”