FG Replies Labour Union, Says “We’ve Fulfilled 90% Of Agreement”

In response to the agitation of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), the Labour Minister Nkiruka Onyejeocha says the Federal Government has achieved about 90% of the agreement it had with the Organised Labour last October.

While speaking on a Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, Onyejeocha said the Federal Government already done virtually everything in agreement up to 90 percent of everything.

She said the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (TUC), Joe Ajaero, told government representatives at a meeting on Sunday that the protest was not about the government’s commitment to the October agreement but food inflation, adding that food security and economic prosperity were part of the priorities of the President Bola Tinubu administration.

However, she appealed to Nigerians to be patient with the new government as the administration is in its planting season with harvest on the horizon, saying the Federal Government had ticked about 90% of the 15-point memorandum of understanding it signed with the Organised Labour on October 2, 2023.

_____Some of the agreement include granting wage award of N35,000 to workers, inauguration of minimum wage committee, and suspension of the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT) on Diesel for six.

____On the provision of high capacity CNG buses for mass transit in Nigeria, the minister said funds had been released for the purpose but “there are certain things you cannot control; you cannot control the number of days a shipment or a container will stay in the port”.

Nigeria is battling rising inflation, food inflation, forex crisis, economic hardship and high cost of living occasioned by the removal of petrol subsidy, attracting protests in parts of the country while the Presidency had engaged labour leaders in a last-minute talks on Monday night but the meeting ended in a stalemate as the NLC insisted that the protest was going to hold.