The federal government has urged the Nigeria Labour Congress to ensure employers implement the Employees Compensation Act (ECA).

Labour minister Chris Ngige stated this at the 13th Quadrennial National Delegates Conference of the NLC in Abuja on Tuesday.

“The major work I want the next NLC administration 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 labour minister explained. “That is one group life insurance for a person in case of when the person dies. Second, the Employee Compensation Act that replaces the old workers’ compensation act.”

Mr Ngige added, “This makes sure all workers are insured against accidents, infirmity, disease that occurs in the course of discharge of their duty.”

The minister said state governments were not paying attention to ECA and that no government implemented the ECA of 2010, though it was a national law.

The minister stressed that some corporations in the public service 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.

“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,” Mr Ngige explained. “You must have universal coverage for workers in the states. If you slip on this right, you have not done your workers well.”

(NAN)