The Nation Newspaper

Category: Labour

  • TUC seeks health insurance scheme

    The Secretary-General of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), Comrade Musa Lawal, has called on the Federal Government to adhere to the policy of International Best Practices (IBP) as the only workable option to the implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in the country.

    He said less than six per cent of the nation’s population is benefiting from the Scheme.

    Musa, who made the call while presenting a paper on ‘Financial Risk Protection: Option for the Private Sector – A Political Economy Approach or Working Class Approach’ during the Presidential Summit on Universal Health Coverage in Abuja, said the lesson learnt from the implementation of NHIS is that the scheme has respond to crisis in the health sector, but has not succeeded due mainly to its  limitation to the formal sector and does not cover most terminal ailments.

    He said: “The way forward for a workable option to the implementation of NHIS, is adopting the IBP that would embrace the most popular of private/public financial protection for health scheme that would be implemented through contributions from both employers and employees on monthly basis as a percentage of income in the country.

    He said the Value Added Tax Funding System (VATFS), as the most effective concept of determinant of health data, should be effectively used as there is pressure on health facilities in most urban centers where the value added tax product is mostly consumed.

    He said VAT that covers financial protection, could give wide spread coverage to health cases as the most effective covering both for the informal and formal sector, adding that health systems require direct, out-of-pocket, payments from people at the time they need care.

    His words: “In Nigeria the challenges associated with direct, out-of-pocket expenses have prevented hundreds of millions from accessing services and  as result, falls into financial hardship, even impoverishment, for millions more.

    “Here in Nigeria, the impact of reducing the reliance on direct, out-of-pocket payments will to some extent, lower the financial barriers to access and reduce the impoverishing impact of health payments.

    “The workable option therefore is for the government to introduce policies that would  reduce fragmentation and increase the redistribution capacity of the pooled funds to cover the healthcare costs for those in need, as key element of the broad strategy that we need to rely on in order to move towards national health service delivery coverage,” he said.

  • Women lack access to protection measures, says ILO

    A large majority of women lack access to quality maternal and infant health care and other maternity protection measures, Director-General, International Labour Organisation (ILO), Guy Ryder, has said.

    Ryder who stated this in a statement marking this year’s International Women’s Day, added that this challenge effectively penalises women fromtheir reproductive role, stressing that risks and opportunities for women often vary depending on their colour, religion, social origin, or skills levels.

    However, he said the situation is not all gloom as countries across the world continue to adopt policies that reduce discrimination against women. ”There has been notable progress in the area of national legislation with most countries having incorporated the principles of equality and non-discrimination.

    “Many governments have adopted active labour market policies to tackle discrimination against women and a growing number of employers’ and workers’ organisations are implementing initiatives on equal opportunity and treatment. A number of individual women have managed to advance and to break through the glass ceiling,” Ryder said.

    “Stubborn and often profound gaps persist. Progress in increasing women’s labour market participation has been uneven according to our 2014 Global Employment Trends Report.

    “He said occupational sex-segregation and gender pay gaps persist, adding women are over-represented in the informal economy, precarious work, and in low-paid jobs.” He listed South-East Asia and the Pacific, as areas were vulnerability in women unemployment was highest in 2013, climbing to as high as (63.1 per cent as compared to 56 per cent for men).

    In the formal economy, share of decision-making posts remains low notwithstanding the pool of talent.

    He said services to assist women and men in balancing work and family responsibilities – particularly state-funded and quality childcare are unavailable or inaccessible for many, adding that such care still largely falls on the shoulders of girls and women.

    Meanwhile, members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Women Commission, have called on the Federal Government to immediately end the killings in the northeast and the fuel scarcity in the country.

    The women activists who joined the rest of the world last Saturday to commemorate the 2014 International Women’s Day at the Labour House in Abuja, said women were the worst hit in times of social or economic crisis, adding that women will make representation to the Ministry of Women Affairs on the need to rise up against injustices against women.

    Chairperson of the NLC Women Commission, Lucy Offiong, said women are adversely affected by the killings because they are not only killed, but also abducted and turned to sex slaves.

    ”We are saddened by the spate of killings in our dear country, Nigeria, especially the recent dimension of targeting young people in schools and colleges.

    ”The recent killing of students in Yobe and the abduction of girls by the Boko Haram sect; as mothers, we are greatly disturbed and condemn in strong terms, such cruel, inhuman and senseless killings. We therefore call on the President to take immediate steps and put a final stop to these unwarranted killings,” Offiong said.

    The NLC President, Abdulwahed Omar, in his remarks, noted that the Federal Government may be plotting to privatise the downstream sector of the oil industry, hence the inexplicable fuel scarcity currently rocking the nation.

    However, he said the NLC will lead Nigerians against any such plot, considering the fact that Nigeria is a major producer of oil and does not have any business importing oil.

  • Pensioners decry omission from National Conference

    The Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) has written a letter to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim decrying their non inclusion amongst delegates for the National Conference .

    The President of the NUP, DR. Abel Afolayan, in a letter to the SGF written on March 7, 2014, which he said he wrote on behalf of over one million pensioners in Nigeria, noted that an unauthorised group has usurped the spots reserved for his members.

    He said as the only union registered and approved by the Ministry of Labour and Productivity for Nigerian civil pensioners/retirees, it was expected that NUP, rather than the association of retired federal permanent secretaries should nominate delegates to the conference.

    “But to our greatest dismay, we discovered that the union was sidelined by Council of Retired Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS), which nominated the six delegates to represent the entire retirees across the nation. It is our conviction that our union should have been consulted over this matter because we are the major stakeholders representing the interest of the entire Civil Service retirees/pensioners.

    “Ironically, other related retirees’ associations, such as the military, the police, State Security Service, were all given slots to represent the interests of their members with the exception of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners,” he said.

    Afolayan regretted that his presence at the Office of SGF on the 5th of March, 2014 to protest the development was rebuffed by the Permanent Secretary (Special Duties), saying that pensioners would organise mass protest all over Nigeria if their grouse is not addressed.

    The letter was copied to the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Alhaji Goni Aji and the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Abdulwahed Omar.

  • Labour to Fed Govt: stop the killings

    Labour Unions have condemned the killing of 43 pupils of Federal Government College, Buni Yadi in Yobe State, by Boko Haram. They urged the government to ensure that the perpertrators were tracked down and punished.

    The  Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) in statements, asked the government to stop the tension being created by the sect members in the North.

    NLC President, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar, said the Federal Government should investigate the allegation that during the  attack, the sect members operated for hours unchallenged.

    “We call on the Federal Government to stop the audacity of Boko Haram because we are shocked by this brazen and ferocious savagery and saddened by the seeming helplessness of our security forces. The earlier successes of the declaration of emergency seem to have petered away, giving room to despair. In the attack on the students, the Boko Haram members were reported to have operated for hours unchallenged,” he said.

    Omar said the massacre of defenceless pupils in Yobe and the routine decimation of communities in Borno and Adamawa states, brings to the fore the reality of the new phase of terrorism.

    “The attacks on Michika,  Madagali  and  Shua in Adamawa and Borno State, were more audacious as the terror elements were said to have moved in murderous convoys of Hilux, chanting war songs in broad day light, killing, pillaging and daring any one to challenge them. Distress calls to our security forces were said to have elicited no reaction”, he said, adding, “by the time it was over, scores of lives had been wasted and property worth billions of Naira, including a heritage site, the oldest missionary/seminary school in the area destroyed. Other property uprooted were shopping malls, banks and police stations.”

    PENGASSAN’s National Public Relations Officer, Comrade Seyi Mohammed Gambo, said it was necessary that the Federal Government tracks down the perpetrators and rescued the female pupils kidnapped at gun point during the incident.

    It urged the government to take inventory of the victims to rehabilitate them and minimise the psychological effect on them.

    “We hereby join other well-meaning and concerned Nigerians and foreign sympathisers to condemn this latest assault on our collective safety and cohesion, and enjoin the government to immediately deploy its machinery in tracking members of this sect, especially perpetrators of this heinous crime, rescue the selected females students kidnapped at gun point, ostensibly to use them as sex slaves, while efforts should be made to look at the socio-economic causes that encourage people to volunteer for such unholy assignments,” PENGASSAN stated.

    ASCSN appealed to the sect to sheathe their swords and embrace peace in the interest of the country.

    Its Secretary-General, Comrade Alade Bashir Lawal,  said: “It is inhuman for the Boko Haram militants to raid the school premises at 2 a.m. when the students were asleep and set their hostels ablaze, while those who tried to escape were gunned down or caught and had their throats slashed. We cannot understand the type of grievance that will drive the so-called religious bigots to indulge in blood-letting in the name of religion.”

    The union wondered what verse or chapter of the Holy Scripture approves the killing of fellow human beings in the name of religion. “The Boko Haram sect surely has a different agenda not known to majority of Nigerians. We are even wondering whether they are real Nigerians or outsiders hired by special interest group to unleash terror on law-abiding citizens of this country for selfish reasons,” the Union said.

    It said there was need for  probe to clear the allegation by a popular foreign television station that security details posted to keep surveillance in the school were withdrawn shortly before the Boko Haram insurgents struck.

  • Govt to sanction illegal job agencies

    The Federal Government has threatened sanctions against unlicensed Private Employment Agencies (PEAs) to check unfair practices.

    Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu, called on the unlicensed PEAs to regularise their operations with the Ministry or face the wrath of the law.

    Wogu, who made this known in Abuja, explained that towards this end, a National Workshop on Strengthening the Role of Private Employment Agencies (PEAs) in Human Resources Development being organised is expected to hold between April 2 and 3 in Lagos.

    According to him, the Ministry, in collaboration with Human Capacity Providers Association of Nigeria (HUCAPA), is organising the national workshop as part of efforts at achieving the laudable objectives of the Transformation Agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration for the labour and employment sector of the national economy.

    Wogu pointed out that in addition to reducing the incidences of unfair labour practices, the workshop is geared towards strengthening relations with all PEAs while promoting productivity and decent work.

    He listed other objectives of the workshop as addressing the emerging trends and challenges in the recruitment industry while also providing a platform for interaction between regulators, operators of recruiters’ license and applicants.

    The Minister further said the workshop was being organised according to the mandate of the Ministry to license qualified firms, including those providing security services to operate as labour contractors and private employment agencies.

  • Lagos PSSDC adpots new strategy

    The Lagos State Public Service Staff Development Centre (PSSDC), Magodo, has adopted the balanced scorecard to drive its performance management and complement the Staff Appraisal and Development Report (SPADEV) in the state.

    Its Director-General, Mrs. Olubunmi Fabamwo, at a management retreat with the theme ‘Strategic Performance Management – An Excellent Tool for Organisational Success’, presented the report as a tool for enhancing the centre’s service delivery by achieving its objectives and deepening its relevance to the state government.

    PSSDC management agreed to commit to the adoption of the balanced scorecard because of its potential to capture and measure the salient performance indicators of their functions and with the conviction that public sector organisations must become more performance-oriented if they must deliver public goods effectively.

    Noting that the scorecard may be a novelty in public service performance management, Fabamwo expressed confidence that the centre would be leading the shift to a performance management system.

    The Lagos State Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Mrs. Modupe Oguntuase urged the centre to improve in its services .

    While congratulating the centre’s staff on the successes, she charged them not to be complacent but continue to design and implement quality capacity building programmes that would enhance the contributions of the public service to the developmental strides of the state government.

    Chief Executive of MacTay Consulting, Mr. Tayo Rotimi, said public sector organisations should ensuring equity in their reward systems if they create effective linkages between Ministries, Departments and Agencies’ (MDA’s) mandates, strategies  and performance objectives, through the adoption of a more robust and approach to performance management.

    According to him, the scorecard provides a good example with its four perspectives namely, financials, customer, processes and learning and growth, adding that with this four-perspective approach, public sector organisations would be translating their strategies into defined operational plans and actions, adding that its adoption would support the PSSDC from being a transactional to a solutions providing capacity building institution.

  • Embrace small-scale business, Trustfund urges workers

    Trustfund Pensions Plc has urged workers to embrace small-scale business models as veritable exit strategy from paid employment in order to have a more enjoyable retirement.

    Its Head of Customer Service, Mrs. Maha Longe, made the call at a pre-retirement seminar for the company’s contributors in the Southeast zone made up of Ebonyi, Imo, Enugu, Abia and Anambra states.

    He pointed out that early death of retirees is mostly caused by lack of economic activities after retiring from paid employment, stressing that the company has set out an enlightenment programme targeting contributors who have between six to 12 months to retire on how to run small scale business. According to her, small-scale businesses that are taught contributors are influenced by what is in demand in the zone.

    “In Ibadan, we taught them how to make soap. But here in Enugu, there is water, fish, grass cutter, and snail, which are things that really sell here,” she said, adding that the seminar would be carried out in other cities of the country including Port Harcourt, Lagos, Abuja, Kano, and Kaduna. She stressed that the training was part of the corporate social responsibility of her organisation.

    The Federal Government has re-appointed Umar Munir Abubakar as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) for another term of four years.

    In a letter, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity, Dr Clement Ilo said the new tenure will take effect from December 28, last year.

    Abubakar promised to ensure the success of the Employees’ Compensation Scheme (ECS) as well as open rehabilitation centres for injured workers.

    He said: “I will use the next four years in office to complete the computerisation of the Fund as well as entrench the prompt payment of benefits/compensation to injured workers within the shortest period of time.”

  • ECS will address workers’ safety, securities, says NSITF boss

    TO ensure that administrative cost of managing Employees’ Compensation Scheme (ECS) does not  fall short of International Labour Organisation (ILO)’s benchmark for Social Insurance Scheme, the Managing Director of Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), Alhaji Munir Abubakar has said the scheme would continue to address issues relating to workers’ insecurity, safety and anxiety.

    Abubakar said the primary objective of the scheme was the protection of citizens against problems associated with disruptions and changes in their income, which could expose them to poverty, suffering and indignity.

    The NSITF boss, while reviewing the on-going NSITF and the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) safe workplace intervention project and an interactive session with participating employers on the implementation of the ECS in the country, said more employers are embracing the scheme as NSITF management continues to explore the option of moral suasion rather than sanction.

    He said: “As part of our efforts at ensuring accountability and transparency in the operation of the ECS, and ensuring that administrative cost of managing the ECS does not exceed the ILO’s benchmark for social insurance scheme, we inaugurated the Independent Investment Committee as provided by Sections 62 and 63 of the Employees’ Compensation Act (ECA 2010). The Committee, which is headed by NECA’s Director-General, Mr. Olusegun Oshinowo has the duty of carrying out investment surveys in the economy and draw up a list of safe investments. It will also initiate or carry out independent assessment of the investment activities of the Board.

    Abubakar,  who emphasised regular investment in accident management infrastructure in companies with high susceptibility to workplace accident, said: “Action started with NSITF/ NECA’s programme of annual awards to employers would measure up to standard required in Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) and donation of OSH tools/equipment to others adjudged deficient in OSH standards.” According to him, the event afforded the management of the scheme an opportunity to update employers and other participants on the implementation of the ECS and  future plans  for the scheme

    Abubakar said: “While a number of employers in the public and private sectors of the economy registered, although, not all of them have fully complied. Appreciable progress has been made in claims and  compensation payment. Virtually all commercial banks in Nigeria have been authorised to collect ECS contributions on behalf of NSITF, making it possible for employers not restricted to any bank across the Federation, while defaulting employers are regularly served with Demand Notices for payment of one per cent of their total emoluments as provided in the Act, with effect from July 1, 2011 and they are complying now; some via additional legal letters.”

    Speaking on awareness drive, the NSITF’s boss stressed that on-going enlightenment campaigns via sensitisation programmes and seminars across the country in collaboration with employers’ and employees’ organisations with appropriate flyers, pamphlets and booklets on ECS have been printed for wide distribution to all stakeholders. According to him, the number of  employers that  had keyed into the scheme is continuously increasing by the day and over 500,000 workers have been covered by the scheme. Apart from other benefits and compensation paid, those earning benefit for life have started receiving it.

    On challenges affecting the smooth operation of the scheme, Abubakar said public awareness of the ECS is  becoming known  as the scheme’s features and benefits are not yet fully understood. “Under-reporting of occupational accidents/diseases to pre-empt corporate negative image and/or evade full compliance with the provisions of the ECA, as well as the improper documentation with respect to claims affect guaranteeing the  genuineness of medical health providers and practitioners,” he said.

  • IOCs’ divestment puts over 20,000 jobs at risk, says PENGASSAN

    About 20,000 jobs in the oil and gas sector may be lost following divestments from upstream assets by major oil firms, the National Public Relations Officer (PRO),  Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN), Mr. Seyi Gambo has said.

    Gambo said since the IOCs, including Shell, Total and Chevron, began the exercise, many of its members have been laid off, adding that about 20,000 members of PENGASSAN stand the risk of losing their jobs.

    Shell, Total and Chevron are among the companies that have sold their stakes, worth about $6.5billion in shallow water assets in Nigeria. ConocoPhillips has equally divested its assets, which Oando Energy Resources has acquired while Shell is putting more blocks for sale.

    On the nation’s refineries, Gambo said the Federal Government should be held responsible for their poor performances, saying government failed to supply them enough crude oil to refine to meet the country’s domestic demand.

    He said: “The refineries have the capacity to refine petroleum products needed in this country. We have also said that if you do not give us crude, how do we refine? It is not our work to get crude for the refineries; it is the work of the Federal Government because the crude has to go through pipelines and they are being vandalised every time. They are not secured.

    “When we did marine haulage to Warri – instead of going through the pipeline, we took vessels to convey the crude. Before Turn Around Maintenance (TAM), Warri could do 70 per cent of its installed capacity if it has crude. Before TAM, Port Harcourt could do 65 per cent of its installed capacity. So, what we are saying is give us the crude and the refineries will work. If you do the TAM of the refineries, they will work better as long as there is crude. As the Minister of Petroleum Resources said abroad, there is a cartel – a cabal working for their interest and not the interest of Nigerians.”

    Gambo said the position of the union is that “if the privatisation will make the managers in the refineries get the money as at when due and not that the money will hang in Abuja for years, fine. We do not want a situation where they will apply for money for TAM and it will take almost two years for it to come out.

    “But the question we are asking is: What kind of privatisation do you want? Is it the kind of privatisation where one person will buy everything? Refineries are national assets. So, we want the Federal Government to take the refineries to the stock exchange,” he said.

    The Federal Government, he said, should come out with a model that will work for the system, adding that what is working in other parts of the world may not work for the Nigerian system.

    “In fact, the Federal Government should come out with models. Yet, it is not a master-servant relationship. So, if you are there, you should tell Nigerians the models you have and let them evaluate the models and find out the one that is workable. What is working in America may not work with us and what is working in China may not work with us because every country has its own peculiarity and unique way of doing things,” he noted.

    As for the refineries, he said, “we have the best engineers, but they are not getting the crude. Then, who should be held responsible? It is the government; it should get the crude for the refineries. It should stop the pipeline vandalisation and crude theft. Some people are making money, taking the crude away with vessels. It is not the fault of the workers that the refineries are not working. It is because we are not being given the crude. Until we are given the crude, we cannot refine,” he said.

  • NUPENG alleges drop in fuel loading

    The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), has said the last few days have witnessed significant drop in fuel loading at various depots in the country.

    It said petroleum products loading dropped by more than 95 per cent. Its members said they used to load more than 100 trucks daily, but now barely load 10 trucks at various depots.

    The union’s Southwest Zonal Chairman, Mr. Tokunbo Korodo attributed the development to scarcity of products at the depots and not any action by oil and gas workers.

    Korodo alleged that the scarcity has forced some marketers to adjust their dispensing pumps in order to accommodate the extra efforts made and resources spent in getting products from the depots.

    He attributed the scarcity to the recent pipeline fire at Ijegun area of Lagos State and the non-availability of first quarter allocation to marketers, adding that the situation will soon return to normal.

    The scarcity, he said, is still being witnessed in some parts of the country, adding that many filling stations failed to dispense fuel to customers. He explained that the few stations that dispensed products had long queues, which rendered most of the roads in the areas impassable.