The Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has inducted the NigeriaSocial Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) into its “Freedom of Information (FOI) Hall
of Shame,” accusing the agency of keeping critical stakeholders in the dark by
not making relevant information available to them, despite the provisions of
the FOI Act, 2011, reports ITRealms.
MRA’s Programme Director, Mr. Ayode Longe, in a press statement to ITRealms, contended that by its actions, the NSITF was undermining the FOI Act
and thereby rendering even its own statutory mandates ineffective. He noted that the NSITF was failing to comply
with the provisions of the FOI Act and carrying out its operations in secrecy,
arguing that under those circumstances, it could not hope to elicit the trust
of workers who are expected to make monthly contributions from their salaries
to it.
He said: “for an agency which says its mission is ‘to be
proactive in providing social security protection and safety nets for all
Nigerians against deprivations and income insecurity in accordance with
national and international laws, conventions and world best practice,’ not to
comply with the provisions of a key piece of legislation like the FOI Act is
completely illogical; it can only mean that it is not being forthright and has
no intention of working to fulfill this mission.”
Mr. Longe explained that for “the NSITF which receives
pension contributions from Nigerian employees, invest such monies and is also
expected to pay the various benefits to persons entitled to the benefits, it is
anathema for it to conduct its affairs in secret and not carry contributors
along on how it manages their monies.”
The NSITF evolved from the National Provident Fund (NPF),
which was established by an Act of Parliament in 1961 to provide a poverty
alleviation measure as required by convention No.102 of the International Labour
Organization (ILO). It aims to protect private sector employees from financial
difficulties in the event of old age, cessation of employment, invalidity or
death.
The National Provident Fund transformed into the NSITF
following recommendations by the Technical Committee on Privatisation and
Commercialization (TCPC), now Bureau on Public Enterprise, for the partial
commercialization of its activities in order to make it self-funded. In 1993,
the Federal Government accepted the recommendation and promulgated what is now
known as the NSITF Act to reflect its new role and objective. The Act vested
all the assets and liabilities of the NPF Management Board in the new NSITF
Management Board and in July 1994, the then Minister of Employment, Labour and
Productivity, launched the new scheme.
MRA noted that in total disregard of the provisions of
Section 2(3) and (4) of the FOI Act, the NSITF failed to proactively publish
most of the 16 important classes of information the Act requires it to publish
without anyone making requests for the information.
The organization also pointed out that the NSITF has failed
to designate any officer to whom requests for information under the FOI Act
should be sent, in addition to failing to proactively publish the title and address
of such appropriate officer of the institution.
Mr. Longe said records obtained from the office of the
Attorney-General of the Federation show that the NSITF has not submitted any
report of its implementation of the FOI Act, when at this point, it should have
submitted six of such reports to date.
This, he stressed, is in contravention of Section 29 (1) and
(2) of the FOI Act and the Guidelines on the Implementation of the Freedom of
Information Act, 2011 issued by the Attorney General of the Federation.
He added that the NSITF is also not known to have conducted
the training of its officials on the public’s right of access to information or
records held by it as provided for in
the FOI Act and for the effective
implementation of the Act, again in contravention of Section 13 of the Act.
MRA called on the relevant committees of the National
Assembly to call the NSITF to order by compelling it to comply with all its
obligations under the FOI Act.
Launched in July 2017, the “FOI Hall of Shame” draws
attention to public officials and institutions undermining the effectiveness of
the Freedom of Information Act through their actions, inactions, utterances and
decisions.
