Olejeme pledges improved service delivery, as NSITF bags ISO certification

THE implementation of Employees Compensation Scheme has got a major boost as the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) recently obtained the prestigious ISO-27001 Certification by the British Standard Institute (BSI).

With ISO-27001, all the 67 offices of NSITF in the 36 states of the federation are now linked and operate on real-time, which now offers real-time service to clients irrespective of the branch they are.

Speaking at the conferment ceremony in Abuja, Board Chairman of the NSITF, Mrs. Ngozi Olejeme, said the certification will enable the Fund raise the bar on its ability to safeguard and document its information assets in a confidential manner while at the same time making it easily and always available for planning purposes.

“With this certification, NSITF has strategically endowed itself with values that repose our stakeholders’ confidence in the quality of what they get from the Fund when they do business with us. We therefore, now have in place a system that can detect the minutest risk factors in our operations, thereby reducing loss to its barest minimum,” she stated.

Olejeme opined that NSITF obtaining the ISO-27001 has overcome the suspicion that people hold against public institutions’ ability to safeguard information at their disposal, saying, “NSITF has overcome that suspicion. Our commitment to the confidentiality, availability and integrity of our information assets can only get better. NSITF is proud to be among a very elite group of public institutions whose security practices and drive for excellence in its operations meet the rigorous ISO 27001 standards. Achieving this milestone makes the Fund a leading social security institution in Africa.”  

Represented by the Executive Director, Finance and investment, Dr. Godson Dinneya, the Managing Director of NSITF, Munir Abubakar, said: “ISO 27001 has strategically positioned NSITF in a transparent manner which encourages business owners and Nigerians in general to do business with the Fund in an environment where an average citizen is suspicious in dealing with government organizations, ISO 27001 shows NSITF management’s commitment to openly deal with the public. It also identifies and implements controls for a more effective business operations for the Fund.”

The Executive Director of Global Info Safe (GIS), an accredited partner of British Standard Institute (BSI), Afolabi Oke, said the processes leading to the ward of ISO 27001 is cumbersome and obtaining it is indeed a hard job.

He added: “Achieving this milestone bolster NSITF’s bid to be a leading social security institution in Africa. Stakeholders will see the Fund as embracing global best practices that ensures efficient, transparent and effective social security appendage of Nigeria.

The value this certification adds to an organization like the NSITF is to give confidence to all their stakeholders that all the information within the organization is classified and protected and that their information will not be divulged to third parties or unauthorized persons.”

On how the certification will impact on the operations of NSITF, the Chief Information Security Officer of the Fund, Mrs. Catherine Ugbe, said: “Certification of ISO 27001 is pivotal to NSITF’s transformation roadmap and a key driver in the Fund’s bid to demonstrate to its customers its significant investment in people, processes and technology to enhance the Fund’s critical impression points Fund-wide by adopting globally acceptable standards through improved information security.”