The Federal Government has been enjoined by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to fast-track work on its proposed palliatives to ameliorate the hardship caused by petrol subsidy removal.
TUC said the various committees put together during Organised Labour’s discussions with the government should submit their reports in the next 18 days to the Presidential Steering Committee.
The talks were adjourned on June 19 for eight weeks to enable the government to put its palliative measures together. The eight weeks will end on August 18.
TUC President Festus Osifo stated this at a news conference in Abuja yesterday.
Also yesterday, the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) and a Northern youth group, Arewa Citizens Watch for Good Governance (ACWGG), differed on the removal of subsidy.
While NUP commended President Bola Tinubu for taking the “bull by the horns” by ending subsidy payment, ACWGG said the policy has led to “artificially-induced hunger and high-cost living in our country.”
While NUP commended President Bola Tinubu for taking the “bull by the horns” by ending subsidy payment, ACWGG said the policy has led to “artificially-induced hunger and high-cost living in our country.”
At the news conference, Osifo said now was the time for the Federal Government to stop speaking “ grammar while workers are suffering.”
Osifo said: “Government should fast track the action and processes to ensure that work was concluded on all discussions on palliative packages.
“We want the government to ensure that between now and the next two weeks all the committees must have submitted their reports for the Presidential Steering Committee to conclude its work immediately because we cannot continuously speak grammar while Nigerians are suffering. We cannot continuously speak English while people are trekking to work.”
“At TUC, we are ready to meet; even at night or weekend, to ensure that the government fast-tracked these processes because the plight of the Nigerian workers is our main concern. .”
Urging that the cost of governance be reduced at all levels, Osifo said workers and masses could not continue to adjust their belts while those in government continued to live largely.
He said: “The government cannot continuously ask workers and the battered Nigerian masses to continuously tie their belts. We have adjusted our belts and we have even exceeded the last hole while those in government have continued to increase their largesse.
He made reference to the plan by the National Assembly to purchase vehicles worth N40 billion and the N70 billion earmarked for the repair of the Assembly complex, he said that federal lawmakers need to lead by example.
His words: “The Executive, Legislature and Judiciary must lead from the front while we follow them from behind as the followers.
“But in a situation where they push a lot of poverty to the masses and they are living in affluence, we will not allow that to work.
“If the National Assembly cannot give a clear-cut justification on what they think they are doing we will lead the entire Nigerian masses to besiege the National Assembly.”
Osifo however commended the Tinubu-led administration for rethinking its earlier decision to share N8,000 to 12 million vulnerable households.
“We raised that red flag and thank God they have listened. We know that N8,000 is nothing. Even if the government said it wants to transfer N50,000 to Nigerians, the question is: where is the data? How can the data be verified?
“Anything we call palliative must be a thing that we can verify. Not something that you will promise us and at the end of the day we won’t know where any of those items have gone.
“We also want the governors to come up with things that will ameliorate the sufferings of Nigerians.”
*Pensioners’ back subsidy removal
NUP welcomed the removal of the subsidy by President Tinubu but called for its members’ inclusion in the palliative measures being packed by the federal and state governments.
The senior citizens also asked for an upward review of their pension whenever the salaries of workers are reviewed.
National President of the union, Godwin Abumisi, told reporters in Abuja, that the group’s state councils to take up the matter of palliative packages with their various state governments.
Abumisi said: “As the Tinubu-led Federal Government unfolds plans to cushion the economic hardship that the removal of the fuel subsidy has brought upon the people, the Nigeria Union of Pensioners wishes to categorically and unequivocally state and remind the Federal Government that pensioners must be included in the planned palliatives package, being one of the low-income earners in the country.
“We commend the initiative of the Federal Government for taking the bull by the horns in the removal of the fuel subsidy, though its attendant pains and frustrations notwithstanding.”
Meanwhile, ACWGG has vowed to “lead hungry, depressed, and frustrated Nigerians on a peaceful protest” if the Federal Government fails to sack the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) and reverse the hike in petrol prices within 10 days.
Chairman of the group, Aliyu Sani, said in a statement that Kyari should be fired for “misleading President Tinubu into removing PMS subsidy without provision of palliative measures”
ACWGG also called for a comprehensive investigation into the subsidy regime and graft within the oil and gas industry.
Source: The Nation
