Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF)

This is the profile page of Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund on Manpower Nigeria. This page contains the email, contact phone number, address, website and other contact information of Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund.

The National Provident Fund (NPF) 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). The Scheme was targeted at protecting private sector employees (whose employers were then mostly  multinationals) from financial difficulties in the event of either old age, cessation of employment, invalidity or death since most employers then did not have such provisions in their employment policies. In a sense, the provident fund scheme was a compulsory savings scheme – i.e. defined contributed scheme. The Act provided for monthly contributions by members at the rate of 6% of basic salary subject to a maximum of N8.00 per month or a sum total of N96.00 per annum to be paid in equal proportion by the employer and the employee. In the event of emigration from the country, employment cessation, old age, invalidity or death, the cumulative amount contributed plus accrued interest (7% as at 1994) calculated on a compound basis, was paid to the contributor or his/her dependent as the case may be. The Act was later amended by another Act of Parliament in 1962 to cover only employees in the private sector who were not covered by the Pension Service Scheme.

         Based on the unanimous verdict of the various persons and bodies including International Labour Organisations (ILO) experts that were appointed by the Federal Government to review the operations of the NPF that the organization had not performed its responsibilities satisfactorily and creditably and therefore, was not achieving the objective for which it was set up, the Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialization (TCPC) (now Bureau on Public Enterprise) which was set up in 1992 recommended the repeal of the Act and partial commercialization of its activities in order to make it self-funded. The Federal Government accepted the recommendation and in 1993, Promulgated the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) 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. In July 1994, the Honourable Minister of Employment, Labour and Productivity, launched the new scheme.