Favour Ogbodo
The proposed strike by labour unions which was scheduled to commence today has been suspended.
This is to allow the government implement a memorandum of agreement reached between the Federal Government (FG), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) on Monday on ways to ease the effect of fuel subsidy removal on Nigerians.
The parties agreed that the FG will grant N35000 to all federal workers pending September salaries and an increment will follow suit in October in accordance with the new minimum wage stipulated and signed by the law and a committee will be set up to foresee the minimum wage agreement.
In addition, the FG is to suspend Value Added Tax (VAT) on diesel for six months beginning from October, 2023 and FG will vote N100 billion for provision of high capacity CNG buses for mass transit in Nigeria and the initial 55,000 CNG conversion programme, whilst work is on going on the state-of-the-art CNG stations nationwide. This commences by November with pilots across 10 campuses nationwide.
Furthermore, the FG will implement various tax incentive measures for private sector and the general public, while issues of outstanding salaries of the lecturers of federal owned tertiary institutions is being referred to Ministry of Labour and Employment for further engagement.
FG agreed to pay N25,000 per month for three months starting from October to 15 million households including vulnerable persons and increase initiative on subsidized distribution of fertilizer to farmers across the country.
For states, the FG will urge ggovernments through the National Economic Council and Governors Forum to implement wage award for workers. Similar consideration should be meted out to private sector and local government .
The FG will also implement its plan to provide fund for micro and small scale businesses. The MSMES beneficiaries should commit to the principle of decent jobs. Finally, joint visitations will be made to refineries to ascertain their rehabilitation status.
