Article Summary
- The Employee Compensation Act 2010 was implemented by the Nigerian government
- The Act provides that if a worker is injured, had an accident, contracted a disease or disabled or died in the course of work, should be compensated
- The public sector at all tiers is to adopt it as the private sector has done
The Nigerian government has on Monday approved the full implementation of the Employee Compensation Act (ECA) 2010, directing the Minister of Finance and the Budget Office to make provision for it in the annual budget as social contributions.
The new law, administered by the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), replaces the previous Employee Compensation Act known as ‘Workmen Compensation’.
What the Act states
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.
What the Minister said
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.
- “This is an insurance premium, one percent of remuneration. You pay it and it insures your worker against these workplace accident injuries,” he said.
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.
According to her,
- “Our time is marked by the economic and social crisis unfolding over the past few years and further aggravated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukraine war.
- “‘Our context is marked by worsening inequalities, environmental crises and million youths who want to work cannot find a job,’ she said.
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 Pension Commission Act makes it mandatory that the employees in any organisation must get two insurance covers for their workers”.
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. According to him,
- ”Therefore the next NLC leadership, if you love the workers and if you love your consistency, you must press for the employee compensation act to be universal.
