Both the Minister of Finance and the Budget Office has been directed to make provision for the newly approved Employee Compensation Act (ECA) 2010 in the annual budget as social contributions.
The Act states that a worker should be compensated if he or she is injured, has an accident, contracts a disease, becomes disabled, or dies while at work.
The federal government, FG, has on Monday approved the full implementation of ECA 2010 which replaces the previous Employee Compensation Act known as ‘Workmen Compensation’.
The new law will be administered by the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF).
The Minister of Labour and employment of Nigeria, Dr Chris Ngige reiterated the directive that all employees of ministries, departments, and agencies be covered by a percentage contribution.
He noted that the Act had been implemented in the private sector, but the public sector – federal, state, and local governments – must now adopt it to protect workers.
Recall earlier, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige said this at the 13th Quadrennial National Delegates Conference of the NLC in Abuja.
He was acting on the recommendation by Vanessa Phala, the Country Director-General of, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) who deliberated on issues affecting workers globally and in Nigeria and the need to evolve the world of work.
Ngige indicated that the major work which the next NLC administration is to do is the implementation of the Employee Compensation Act and the Pension Reform Act (PRA).
The minister said, unfortunately, state governments in particular were not paying particular attention to ECA though it was a national law.
He further stated that some corporations in the public service have tried to implement the act by engaging private insurance companies to do what they call accident insurance for workers.
He said they did this because they did not want to pay for any fatalities, but they liked to gather the premium.
