FG To Enforce Employee Safety, Insurance Compliance

Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, has announced the intention of the federal government to embark on the enforcement of employee safety and insurance laws in all private sector establishments across the country.

Ngige advised employers of labour in the country, who do not have standardised welfare programme for their workers to sit FG to enforce employee safety, insurance compliance. Ngige up as his Ministry from the second quarter of this year will engage in aggressive enforcement of regulation of labour laws in the country.

The Minister revealed this in Nnewi when he led a team of the officials of the Ministry to inspect the Gas Factory at Nnewi, Anambra State, razed down, late December last year, in which eight persons were confirmed dead and several others injured.

Ngige frowned at noncompliance to labour laws by many employers of labour on safety regulations as enshrined in the Factory Act of 2004 to ensure ad-

equate safety for workers at work places as well as draw up effective emergency plan and response programme. He vowed that from the second quarter of this year, his Ministry will embark on aggressive regulatory activity in all the factories nationwide to ensure safety and registration of employees with the National Insurance Trust Fund by companies which have more than three workers. The Minister said that a situation where filling stations spring up every in nooks and crannies in the country with only Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR)’s approval cannot happen again except his Ministry sanctions that they complied with the employees’ minimum safety requirement.

Senator Ngige said that these measures were not against the employers or employees, but for the interest of both, saying there are enough Labour Laws to protect both employers and employ-ees, but failure to invoke them has been the problem, promising that this time around, all those relevant labour laws will take its full course.“The Department of Factory and Safety in my Ministry will implement this. We must make sure employers provide safety measures in the work place before take-off. I will institutionalize it, so that even if I leave, there will be ready machinery for its enforcement,” he said.