NIA Reiterates Opposition to Workmen’s Compensation Bill

The proposed bill on employee compensation presently pending in the National Assembly has continued to generate intense oppositions from professionals, especially the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA). According to the pulse of the insurance professionals, allowing the bill to succeed would amount to compounding the problems of employees in the area of taxation. Defending its opposition to the Bill proposed by the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), the NIA stated that under section 34, sub-section 1 of the proposed bill, “every employer shall make a minimum monthly contribution of 1.0 percent of the total monthly payroll into the Fund.” The argument of the insurers’organ is that workers would be subjected to multiple taxation which is already a big burden on the workers. It stated that employees are already chocked with the lack of infrastructural amenities such as electricity and water even as they are paying other forms of taxes under different names. The Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) in a presentation to the two relevant committees of the National Assembly said the proposed bill, if passed in its present form, would create a huge tax burden on employees. According to the NIA, the biting taxation under which employees were currently engrossed include the National Health Insurance Scheme, the National Housing Fund, Retirement Savings Account deductions in Pension Reform Act 2004, Company tax, Education tax as well as other multiple taxes by states and local governments.
The insurer’s umbrella body which vowed to resist every attempt to further impoverish the employees stated that if the NSITF was allowed to run away with the benefit of the workmen’s compensation, amounted to creating a body which would become untamable in future, particularly in arbitrary fixing of rates against the wishes of the workers. In the words of David Iyasere, Corporate Affairs manager, the NIA is equally vexed by the fact that the proposed Bill gives NSITF the power to invade companies' premises at will to cart away vital documents in its bid to enforce the law, especially if the NSITF acts in line with Section 42 of the proposed bill. Under the enforcement powers of the bill, a "public officer may, for the purpose of carrying out his or her duties under this Act and any regulations made there under or pursuant to any enactment or law shall - enter in any workplace at any time with or without warrant or notice."
NIA reiterated that under the proposed bill, it could require the production of any licence, document, record or report, inspect, and examine a copy of same, remove any licence, document, record or report inspected or examined for the purpose of making copies or extracts and that any inspection, examination or inquiry, shall be accompanied and assisted by a police officer or other person or persons having special, expert or professional knowledge of any matter in respect of which inspection is being carried out. The insurance professionals organ opined that it the provisions of the proposed bill was in its entirety, inimical to the well-being of the people, in a country where the deeply committed to encouraging investments, both locally and internationally.