….Engagement is work-in- progress- Idris
The federal government and members of the organised Labour led by the Nigeria Labour Congress, on Wednesday, met to review issues around increase in cost of petrol.
The meeting which was held at the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, was attended by the NLC and those of the TUC.
The meeting ended without any communique, Idris Mohammed, Minister of Information and National Orientation, who spoke after the meeting, described it as “ work- in – progress, adding that it is part of the regular engagements between the government and the organised labour.
Read also: Fuel price hikes put pressure on workers as transport costs surge
“A lot of things were discussed, but like I said, this is a work in progress, this is something that isn’t a one-off thing, but we have not reached anything that we think that we can tell”
The meeting which held behind closed doors, was attended by Joe Ajaero , President of the NLC and Festus Osifo, President of the Trade Union Congress TUC, alonside other officials
Recall that Joe Ajaero, President of the NLC had on October 9th, expressed its dismay at the latest increase in the pump price of petrol, adding that “ It looks like the only thing this government is known for is increase in the pump price of petrol without commensurate capacity of Nigerians or mitigatory measures.”
The NLC had challenged the government to go to the drawing board and produce a blueprint for an inclusive economic growth and national development instead of this spasmodic ad hocism and palliative policy.
Labour had noted that the increase will further deepen poverty as production capacities dip, more jobs lost with multidimensional negative effects.
“In light of this, we urge the government to immediately reverse this rate hike as previous increases did not produce any good result. People only got poorer.
“But more fundamentally, the government should be bold enough to tell Nigerians in advance the destination it wants to take the country”.
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