The federal government will soon start preventing companies without the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) certificate from bidding for government contracts.

Accordingly, the NSITF is collaborating with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to make it impossible for companies without its certificate to bid for contracts.

The managing director of the fund, Mr. Adebayo Somefun, who gave the hint in an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP said this is the only way to ensure the success of the fund.

Appealing to the federal government to mandate companies to contribute to the fund, he noted that government should make it compulsory for any company that wants to bid for any contract to present their NSITF certificate.

Somefun said, “Those that are defaulting, the government should help us mandate them to contribute and I am sure government has started doing that by issuing circulars to all the appropriate agencies. We are supposed to enforce by taking them to court.

“Once we do automation we will get everything right. If they don’t contribute they cannot go and bid for any contract. CAC is in the picture and we have collaboration with them and when you want to bid for a contract, you have to have this or that and NSITF certificate is not there then you don’t have a choice.”

When reminded that there have been cases where companies without some of these certificates, including the NSITF certificate, get contracts running into billions from government entities, he pointed out that the present administration is a ‘change’ government where such practices will no longer be tolerated.

He assured that by the time most of these laws are enforced and scapegoats are made, people will begin to conform.

“That is because some of things are not being done properly. This is a ‘change’ administration and you have heard about the executive order and it will do most of this things. People are now being informed. It will get better; if we put this in place it will take us higher than where we are now,” he added.

Asked if the fund has ever encountered fraud such as false claims of injury for compensation, probably in collusion with an unscrupulous employer, he replied: “We should have had some cases in the past but if we take care of automation, it will take care of fraud and all these. The employer will not be able to undervalue what he is supposed to pay.

“If you look at ITF and Co, the number of employees is there and you will go online and pay. We have the number; we go to CAC to know the number of companies that are registered. By the time we have these stakeholders in place, there will be nothing like fraud. The most important thing now is to get this place fully automated. By the grace of God we are already in the process.”

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