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Tag: informal sector

  • NSITF to extend coverage of compensation scheme to informal sector

    The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF)  has said  plans are underway to expand the scope of the Fund’s  Employees’Compensation Scheme (ECS) to the informal sector of the economy.

    Its Managing Director, Mr.  Adebayo Somefun, stated this at the just-concluded Art and Culture Expo organised by the National Council of Arts and Culture (NCAC) in Abuja.

    The NSITF boss explained that the move was intended to ensure that more workers benefit from the ECS coverage to execute their tasks without fear of occupational injuries.

    Somefun explained that though the informal sector  was difficult to organise, mechanisms would be put in place to organise them into groups for ease of administration.

    He urged  the sector to key into the social security scheme, saying: “The sector needs to understand, know and be convinced that the health insurance, contributory pension and employees’ compensation  scheme are all geared towards ensuring good life for all the workers. Integrating them into the scheme is a certainty if the country is desirous of covering most of its citizens, but the process has to be gradual.”

    He said  the  Fund was liaising with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), State Boards of Inland Revenue, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Federal Inland Revenue Service to get a comprehensive data of registered companies in the country.

    While the updating of records of existing organisations in its database is on going, he said the Fund has also put measures in place to encourage the 774 local government councils in the country to key into the scheme.

    According to Somefun, discussions and talks with non-treasury funded organisations and other agencies yet to key into the scheme are being pursued.

    Somefun, who decried  the high number of defaulting organisations, revealed that the management was already partnering with National Assembly committee with oversight functions on recalcitrant employers to enforce total compliance on defaulters.

    He explained that the urgent need for more companies and workers to join the scheme informed the decision of the Fund to participate in trade fairs and culture expos.

    “What we have been trying to do is to reach out to employers of labour and employees wherever they can be found. We know that a lot of people attend trade fairs and that presents an opportunity to meet them there.

    “The NSITF decided to attend the art and craft expo in Abuja because we discovered that a lot of foreign countries participate in the fair to showcase their cultural wares. At the expo, we were able to meet some embassies. The Indian embassy said it was not aware that employees’ compensation scheme exists in Nigeria. The embassy then invited us to their office to make presentation to their staff,” he said.

  • Traders, informal sector operators to pay N10 daily tax in Oyo

    As part of the measure to institute a new culture of paying tax in the state,

    The Oyo State Board of Internal Revenue (OYBIR) has said it will soon begin the collection of N10 daily tax from traders and various operators in the informal sector.

    The amount, which builds up to N3,000 annual tax, is to be collected by trained officials of the agency with the use of Point of Sales (POS) machines.

    At a sensitisation and tax collection parley in various markets yesterday, top officials of the OYBIR, led by its Chairman, Mr. Bicci Alli, demonstrated to market leaders how to pay their tax with ease.

    In the new payment mode, market leaders will pay their tax to authorised tax collectors in the presence of the traders and market leaders.

    During the tour, market leaders received the tax officials with delight and assured them of their readiness to comply with the government directive since the money is affordable.

    The market toured include the popular Ago-Ilorin Market in Mokola, Ibadan, where the Iyaloja, Mrs Feyisara Bayo-Azeez, and other market leaders received the revenue collectors and paid her dues to show her compliance.

    At the Agbaja Market in Agbeni, Ibadan, the Acting Chairman of the traders’ association, Mr Samuel Orokunle, said the traders had been waiting for the government to begin the new tax collection regime.

    He said the traders understood the fact that the government alone cannot handle the development of the state without the cooperation of the residents.

    On the purpose of the sensitisation and tax drive, Alli said: “We are working towards improving a structure that collects money and builds a culture of tax payment in the state. Our people have been paying taxes before now; it’s not new. But somewhere along the line, we lost it. The essence of the exercise is first and foremost to build the culture of tax payment and make it sustainable.

    “It is going to be beyond the present administration and beyond anyone. That is what we mean by cultural change.

    “Two, it is also to put in place a structure to collect these funds seamlessly. Oyo State, and Ibadan in particular, has one of the largest informal sectors in Nigeria, in West Africa. We are talking about millions of people who are involved in one trade or the other, and not in the formal sector.

    “And if you look at it, if about two or three millions of these people contribute N3,000 on a yearly basis, you can imagine how much money that would be and to what extent that will assist the state to rely less on the allocation from the Federal Government, which you and I know keeps dwindling. We cannot continue to rely on that.

     

  • Expert seeks social health scheme for informal sector

    The Chairperson, Programme Committee of the Young Women Christian Association (YWCA), Lagos branch, Dr Olatokunbo Oseni, has called for a social health insurance scheme that will provide affordable care to people in the informal sector.

    Oseni said this at the cancer awareness and prevention campaign organised by YWCA, Lagos branch, in conjunction with Tejuosho Market Traders Association, Union Diagnostics Limited and Afriglobal Medicare Limited for market men and women in Tejuosho Market, Yaba, Lagos.

    The event brought together over 120 people, including traders in Tejusho market and its environs and featured health talks on the risk factors, symptoms, signs and basic management of prostate, breast and cervical cancer and free medical checkups by Afriglobal Medicare  and Union Diagnostic.

    According to her, there is an urgent need for the government and other relevant stakeholders to unveil a workable insurance health care scheme for men and women in the informal sector.

    She noted that there are many taxable adults in the informal sector who are not captured in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

    Oseni said there were increasing cases of life-threatening diseases that were rooted in small ailments not attended to in good time and which later developed into unmanageable cases.

    She praised the Federal Government for the NHIS  and tertiary institutions’ Social Health Insurance Scheme which has kicked off in all the states, adding that the scheme only captures people in the formal sector whose funds can be deducted from their salaries.

    She stressed the need to strengthen the health insurance schemes to include the poor and the people in the informal sector as imperative.

    She added that the informal sector has the capacity to generate a lot of income and improve the Gross Domestic Product, if proper heath care service that is affordable is put in place across the country.

    “Health is wealth and the only way for anyone to be more productive and make wealth is when they are healthy and strong,” she said.

    Oseni said many of the  diseases, which include high blood pressure, stroke, cancer, are results of little ailment not well controlled.

    She noted that the organisation was willing to partner the  government to establish the social insurance scheme for rural dwellers.

    Chairman of YWCA, Lagos Branch, Mrs. Olapeju Sofowora, said  the awareness was concentrated on women on the need to be more concerned about their health.

    She noted that the well-being of women, especially within the informal sector, was a source of concern to the group and was willing to provide all the support for them to live healthy and productive.

    She added that promoting literacy among women was key to their empowerment.

  • Stakeholders hail underwriting standards for informal sector

    Stakeholders hail underwriting standards for informal sector

    •Document targets 58% of sector

    Stakeholders have hailed the new underwriting standards for mortgage in the informal sector.

    The standards, launched in Lagos, is a key component of the National Housing Finance Programme (NHFP) of the Federal Government aimed at empowering Nigerians in the sector to own a house. It comes under the My Own Home scheme.

    The scheme, stakeholders agreed, would create a uniform standard for disbursement of mortgage loans to intending house owners in the informal sector.

    With this programme, the mortgage market would be positioned to capture 58 per cent of those in the informal sector.

    After the launch at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Lagos office, the Executive Director, Business Development and Portfolio Management of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), Umar Abdulahi, said the initiative was timely and has the capacity of bringing in the largely-uncaptured population in the informal sector of the housing market. He praised the document for being “all encompassing”.

    “The informal sector constitutes a large market that had not been explored. We have a large market in the sector but we need social inclusiveness in the area of housing. The law is that anyone who earns up to N3,000 and above is entitled to mortgage loan but a lot of people, especially outside the formal sector, are not benefiting. Now this underwriting standard will ensure they benefit,” he said.

    Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC) Managing Director Prof. Charles Inyangete, represented by NMRC’s Head of Business Development Mrs Dorothy Obata, said about 70 per cent of home seekers in the informal sector are not captured in the mortgage market. She described them as “middle income earners who did not have structures”.

    “This is a welcomed development in comparison to what we had before which was the formal sector uniform underwriting standard. The uniform writing standard for the informal sector will be a big catalyst for intending house owners,” she said.

    Similarly, Mortgage Banking Association of Nigeria (MBAN) President Mr. Niyi Akinlusi sees the initiative as a game-changer in housing.

    He regretted that the informal sector, which was contributing  about 60 per cent to the national gross domestic product (GDP), has been neglected for long, especially in housing.

    “It is time for us to start working and bring into the housing market, the mortgage market, to serve as a bridge for many people to  own their  house.

    According to him, Nigerians desirous of owning homes can now be assured of having a shoulder to lean on to make their dreams come true. MBAN, he emphasised, has put in place strategies for the 34 mortgage institutions across the country to capture a larger percentage of the informal sector in the home ownership net. This, ultimately, would reduce the housing deficit in the nation.

    Akinlusi said the launch represented a new dawn for players in the informal sector who hitherto had no access to mortgage. Besides, he is particularly pleased that stringent collateral like certificate of occupancy has been removed from the conditions of getting a mortgage.

    Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) Special Insured Institutions Director Mr. Joshua Etupidiok said the corporation, ahead of the initiative, developed an insurance product for the non-interest primary mortgage institutions (PMIs). This is, because, the informal sector has a huge market for mortgage, he said.

    NHFP Head of the CBN Mr. Adedeji Adesemoye said the  document would give those without  salaries access to mortgage loan for their housing needs. He said this would nip in the bud problems affecting access to mortgage by the informal sector.

    He assured that in the next six months, the CBN would evaluate the number of mortgages in the sector.

    Adesemoye said stakeholders were also developing underwriting standards for the non-interest primary mortgage banks and groups, adding that this would be launched between next month and April.

    Stakeholders were convinced that the mortgage law would capture the self-employed and business owners in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).

    Some of the issues in the standards are property and borrower eligibility, credit worthiness, loan tenor, repayment structure, property title, required security, insurance, and mortgage counseling, among others.

    The underwriting standard is an initiative of the CBN, MBAN, the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company, FMBN, and the NDIC.

    NHFP Consultant on Housing and Mortgage, Mrs Adenike Fasanya-Osilaja, said the event was important because there was the need for a policy to drive the initiative.

    She said the underwriters had been trained to use “common sense” to determine good borrowers.

    “We are also going to be telling the populace that you must not work in an office to have access to home ownership,” she said.

    She said measures were in place to ensure borrowers in the informal sector met their loan obligations.

  • Ngige: informal sector key to job creation

    Ngige: informal sector key to job creation

    The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, has said formalisation of the informal sector is one of the Federal Government’s cardinal approaches   to combat unemployment.

    He spoke when  the executives of the Association of Vulcanisers of Nigeria, FCT chapter, led by the  Chairman, Comrade Lawal Mohammed Okokore, visited him in Abuja.

    He said vulcanising was an important self-employed occupation as it involves skills, thereby contributing to the Federal Government’s effort at reducing unemployment.

    Ngige emphasised that the government alone could not create the needed jobs, adding that the era of white collar jobs was gone.

    ”We made a commitment not to retrench but we are interested in de-emphasissing youths dependence on limited white collar jobs.

    “We rather encourage them to embrace blue collar jobs in agriculture, mining as well as in trades, such as vulcanising,’’ he said.

    He urged the association to avail its members of the opportunity provided by the various skills acquisition centres of the ministry as well as key into the skills acquisition programmes of the National Directorate of Employment(NDE).

    “This ministry has eight specialised skills centres spread across the geo-political zones, your members can go there and get advanced skills in vulcanising for free and be certified with trade test certificate which is equivalent to the City and Guild of past,” he said.

    The state chairman of the association, Comrade Okokore, said  majority of technicians in Nigeria, including vulcanisers, lacked modern skills and equipment to ply their trades.

    He urged the minister to support the association through training and workshops, easy and direct access to modern equipment and accessories as well as soft loans to artisans and technicians.

  • PENCOM to extend coverage to Informal Sector

    PENCOM to extend coverage to Informal Sector

    The National Pension Commission (PENCOM) on Friday gave the assurance that it was ready to cover the outstanding 60 per cent of the populace in its micro-pension scheme, to secure the future of informal sector employees.

    Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amaizu, the Director-General of the commission, said this while answering questions from reporters in Lagos.

    According to Anohu-Amaizu, PENCOM will collaborate with groups such as Organised Labour, Civil Society groups, Road Transport workers and others, to achieve the objective.

    She said that people in the informal sector of the economy needed to be captured in the scheme, to guarantee some steady income for them in their post-work era.

    “The micro-pension scheme is ready to capture even people in Nollywood and the music sector. When some actors or musicians are no longer performing, they find it difficult to be able to live well.

    “People in the entertainment industry earn millions today, but many of them may have no plans for the rainy day. Which explains why it is pertinent to capture them in the micro-pension scheme,’’ she said.

    The PENCOM chief stressed that the informal sector employees must, however, be ready to save some money for the future, adding that the country was now encountering problems with earnings from oil because it did not leave money in the reserves during the oil boom era.

    She said that the commission had started sensitising workers in the textile industry on the issue and that it also had plans to extend the initiative to the road transport workers.

    “We have identified the groups to work with. We will soon begin sensitisation for the workers to enable them to understand the importance of what they are going into, before we will start the scheme,’’ she said.

    Anohu-Amaizu, however, disclosed that the commission’s contributory pension scheme had so far harnessed about N5.3 trillion which was safely invested, stressing that PENCOM’s activities were governed by its enabling law.

  • CAC to move from formal to informal sector

    CAC to move from formal to informal sector

    Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) Bello Mahmud has said the target of the commission was to move to the informal sector.

    Mahmud spoke while declaring open the 2015 management retreat in Kaduna

    He said: “The commission, in collaboration with the Growth and Employment in States, (GEMS) of the Department for International Development (DFID), carried out a sensitisation campaign across the country on the benefit of business registration.

    “The target was to migrate from the formal to the informal sector. With the decentralisation of operations, incorporation applications can be processed and certificates of incorporation issued to customers without recourse to the Head Office.

    “This has significantly reduced cost of doing business as customers no longer have to travel or send documents to Abuja. The start to finish of company registration is currently obtainable in five states – Lagos, Enugu, Kano, Kaduna and Port Harcourt. The service will be extended to other states soon.

    Mahmud said emphasis was on the deployment of the new company registration portal, which he said was necessitated by the earlier content pinnacle software which has functional limitations in features and user ability.