President Bola Tinubu has approved N35,000 provisional wage award for all treasury-paid federal government workers for six months.
Mohammed Idris, the minister of information and national orientation, said in a statement late on Sunday night, that the decision followed further consultations with the Federal Government delegation that met with the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) earlier on Sunday.
At the meeting between both parties, the Federal Government pledged its commitment to fast-track the provision of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses to ease public transportation difficulties associated with the removal of PMS subsidy.
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The Federal Government also committed to the provision of funds for micro and small-scale enterprises as well as waivers on VAT on diesel for the next 6 months.
The government also announced that it will commence payment of N75,000 to 15 million households at N25,000 per month, for a three-month period from October-December 2023.
The labour groups, led by Joe Ajaero, President of the NLC, Tammy Okon, Deputy President, TUC, agreed to meet with their various organs on Monday, on whether to go on strike on Tuesday or not
Emma Ugboaja, the NLC General Secretary, Nuhu Toro, the TUC General Secretary, were among those present at the meeting.
Both parties are set to reconvene on today and give feed backs, which may lead to call off of the strike action proposed by Labour.
Femi Gbajabiamila, the Chief of Staff (CoS), to the President, who led the federal government team, announced after the meeting that the government and members of the organised labour reached agreements which the labour officials will take back to their respective organs for ratification.
“I must quickly clarify something that can be clarified now and we must thank Labour for that keen observation,” Gbajabiamila said.
“There was a lot of chatter on Twitter about the issue of low-income workers only falling into the category of the wage bill. They spotted that; and we communicated that to Mr President and he quickly agreed that all categories of workers will be given the wage bill. There’s nothing like low-income, mid-income or high-income. I think that’s worthy of clarification tonight.”
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Also speaking on the outcome of the meeting, Ajaero who led the Labour team corroborated the position of the Chief of Staff, adding that “ I don’t have much to say than the Chief of Staff has said. We’ve been meeting and we’ve looked at almost all the issues, all the promissory notes from the government and we’ll look at how to translate them to reality and to be workable.”
“ We are going to take those promises to our organs, of course you know these people here cannot just wake up and review and call off the strike action,” he said.
“So like he said, we’re hopeful that our organs will have a look at them and give us a fresh mandate on what next to do. So it’s a simple one.”
Tommy Okon, Acting TUC President, in his remarks said he will also report back to the TUC organs for their final decision.
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“Let me on behalf of the TUC also point out the fact that we’ve had series of conversations surrounding the issue raised and we do hope that by tomorrow we are going to get across to our organs so that we can also look at it and cross-fertilize ideas and see the way forward. I’m sure we’re coming back again tomorrow for that”.
