The Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), has solicited the legal community in Nigeria to be advocates of the Employees’ Compensation Scheme and show example through compliance.
Managing Director of NSITF, Barrister Olúwaṣeun Faleye, made the call in Enugu at the NBA 65th Annual Conference.
“The implementation and impact of the Employees’ Compensation Act, 2010 cannot rest on the NSITF alone. Like every piece of transformative
legislation, the ECA lives and breathes through the interpretation, advocacy, and enforcement carried out by lawyers, judges, and policymakers.
“Apart from our expectation of you as advocates of the efficacy of the Employees’ Compensation Scheme, the most crucial expectation we have of you lawyers and leaders of the bar here is to lead by example. We must comply with the law ourselves. We must ensure that all law firms practicing in Nigeria subscribe to the Employees’ Compensation Scheme”, Faleye said.
The NSITF’s Managing-Director who presented the lead paper titled: “Enhancing Workplace Safety and Social Protection: The Role of Employees’ Compensation Act 2010” at the Vl Breakout Session, further solicited making compliance with the ECA a prerequisite for becoming a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.
He enumerated occupational hazards and risks in the legal profession to include injuries, disabilities and deaths from accidents while travelling for work, diseases such as acute back pain from sitting down for long stretches and mental breakdowns.
“As you all know, law practice, particularly those of our colleagues engaged in dispute resolution practice, comes with its risks. Lawyers travel to different parts of this country practicing their trade, advocating and defending clients. These journeys come with risks.
“For the corporate and commercial lawyers, we tend to sit for hours reviewing documents amongst other things leading to back injury. The pressure of work could sometimes lead not only to physical challenges but to mental stress. Yet, majority of our law firms are not complying with the Employees’ Compensation Scheme,”he lamented.
“The NBA must do more and ensure that all law firms comply with the Employees’ Compensation Act to safeguard our workforce. We must ensure that compliance evidence becomes part of the documentation for taking silk. As part of the law firm inspection, I urge us to ask for evidence that law firms are complying with the Employees’ Compensation Act akin to our position on payment of pension obligations for lawyers,” he solicited.
