The Industrial Training Fund, a parastatal under the Ministry of Trade & Investment, is vested with the responsibility of enhancing Industrial Work Experience and vocational training. To fund it's activities, it's enabling law empowers it to receive 1% of the worth of total payroll of all companies that have up to 5 staff or annual revenue of up to N50m.

For some reason, many MDAs have made the presentation of ITF compliance certificate a prerequisite for bidding for government contracts. Hence, any SME that wants to do the right has no choice but apply to an ITF Zonal office for the certificate. And you will pity yourself if you apply at the Abuja Zonal Office of ITF.

At the office located behind Transcorp Hiltonthe officials on the second floor accounts office will request for your audited annual report and, where available, your Tax Clearance Certificate. If you avail them of these and the officials note that your total payroll is small, you will be forced to pay N50,000. The officials of Abuja Zonal Office of ITF have abandoned their Act and now go outside of it to fix a minimum ITF payment of N50,000!!!!!

This wickedness is killing SMEs that seek to do the right thing. If you point out that it's outside their powers to arbitrarily fix such an amount, they ask you to go and come back when you are ready. If you beg that your small company will find the payment burdensome, they tell you how you will enjoy wealth when you win government contracts for which the compliance certificate prequalifies you. It appears to be a no-win for DMEs and many are fleeced daily.


Considering that the ITF Act requires only 1% of total payroll, the N50k/annum which they are slamming shows that they assume every company must have payed out a total emolument of N5,000,000 to its staff in the year under review! Considering what many Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises are going through, this is position of Abuja ITF not realistic. In fact, it is wicked. Zones outside Abuja appear more responsive to their Act than the Abuja Zone.


It's time for right-thinking people to mount further investigations and bring ITF to book. They have no power to abandon statements of affairs as reflected in TCC and/or audited reports that are duly sealed by an accounting firm only to slam their own N50,000 charge.