What is NSITF and what do they do?
In Nigeria we have a government institution called the NSITF, its full meaning is Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund and what they basically do is cater for employees of companies in the event of work-related accidents or injuries.
The NSITF is supposed to provide compensation for insured employees in case of work-related diseases, disability, injuries, or death. This holds when such a demise happens in the workplace or outside it.
The NSITF gets its funding by collecting a certain percentage from the monthly income of every worker in Nigeria. So if you work in Nigeria, there’s a very big probability that a percentage of your salary per month is going to the NSITF which should be a good thing because of the purpose that money is supposed to serve but unfortunately, this week the NSITF has come under serious criticism as a story broke out that approximately 17.2 billion naira was spent by the NSITF and there are no documents to show how the money was spent
Do you remember when we were told by a senator that a Monkey stole 70 million Naira from his farmhouse or when JAMB told us that a snake swallowed 100,000 dollars from its office vault? Do you remember how ridiculous those excuses were, well the NSITF has given us another ridiculous one by stating that the documents that could have shown how the 17.2 billion Naira was spent have been eaten up by Termites. Yes, you read that right. The vouchers for the 17.2 billion Niara spending have been eaten by Termites.
The Senate Public Account Committee has started an investigation into the present and past management of the NSITF. The office of the auditor general of the federation in its audit from 2018 that is currently being considered by the Senate public account committee found out the money was transferred by the agency from its Skye and First Bank accounts, into various untraceable accounts belonging to individuals and companies between January and December 2013. The office of the auditor general generated over 50 queries that bordered on the misappropriation of funds by the agency. At this point, we are not sure which animal another government body will blame for misappropriation of funds next.
#STATEAFFAIRS is a segment that gives you a quick rundown of various political and state issues as they happen in the most simple, subtle language. In this edition, we are looking at the NSITF fraud case.
