Nigeria’s economic growth depends on workers’ wellbeing — NSITF boss, Somefun

Nigeria’s economic development depends largely on the health and wellbeing of the workers, and the corporate growth of the organisations charged with ensuring and boosting their overall and specific efficiencies in times of injuries or disabilities.

This position was canvassed by the Managing Director and Chief Executive of the Nigeria Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), Barrister Adebayo Somefun, at the start of the Fund’s three-day Board and Management Retreat, held at the Le Meridien Hotel, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

The retreat has the theme as: ‘In Pursuit of Corporate Growth and Contribution to National Economic Development’, and Somefun reminded the participants of NSITF’s mandate to provide adequate compensation to workers who suffer injury, disability or disease; or to their families, in the case of death while in active employment.

According to Somefun, “Corporate Growth is very necessary for a Company to remain healthy to be able to positively contribute to national economic development. The health and wellbeing of Nigerian workers impacts directly on the economic growth of the nation.

“The mandate of NSITF provides an opportunity for the nation’s workforce (through their employers) to go the extra mile in the discharge of their duties with the assurance that should there be any injury, disability, disease or death arising out of or in the course of employment, they have an ally in us that would take care of their needs in provision of adequate compensation.

“Accordingly, the importance of our corporate growth cannot be over emphasized. We would want to be more relevant to the Nigerian employers of labour and their workforce in the day-to-day discharge of our mandate.

“In doing this you will agree with me that we would contribute more towards national economic development and nation building.”

He outlined the format of the retreat and why it was important that the Board and management staff “retired” out of Abuja to serene Uyo, to harmonise their strategies with the basic aim at “targeting us in the right directions on how to re-invent our leadership roles with a view to fulfilling our corporate mandate and Vision of the Fund”.

Besides, “it is a common saying in business that ‘execution is everything’. As we spend the days ‘Retiring’ in this retreat, we are hopeful that we will spend the rest of the year ‘Refiring’, executing the decisions and the strategies that we will arrive at in the course of the retreat”, the Managing Director added.

In his remarks, Chairman of the Board of NSITF, Prince Austin Enajemo-Isire, stressed that the nation’s workforce and the whole country stood to gain immensely from the outcome of the retreat, hence, the seriousness that needed to be attached to it.

“We are here because it is a time to re-examine our operational qualities and ensure that obstacles to excellence are removed and we move to great heights.

“By the time we take NSITF’s operations to a greater height, the entire nation will benefit and the entire workers will be happy”, he said while charging the staff and management to be dedicated to the objectives of the retreat.