Eight weeks after a commitment to an immediate restructuring of the framework for engagement with organized Labour on palliatives for Nigerians to cushion the effect of subsidy removal, the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-administration is yet to begin the process. And yesterday, the eight-week time frame set for the conclusion of the process expired with no action whatsoever.
Labour sources told The Guardian that since June 19 when the President set up committees for the purpose, neither the Presidential Steering Committee nor its sub-committees had met to conclude talks on the framework to be adopted.
Following the President’s intervention, sub-committees had been created with a view to working out how to implement FG’s palliative drive in areas such as Cash Transfers, Social Investment Programme (SIP), Cost of Governance, Energy, Mass Transit, and Housing. The committees were given eight weeks to conclude their assignment to hasten the implementation of the framework in cushioning the effect of petrol subsidy removal on Nigerians.
This was a fall-out of President Tinubu’s closed-door session with the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) during a nationwide protest by the organised labour
In a swift reaction, organised labour kicked against the Federal Government doling of N5 billion palliative grant to states to cushion the impact of the subsidy removal.
NLC President, Joe Ajaero, said government going ahead to give governors N5 billion as palliative to their states speaks against its proposal that governors should not be allowed to drive the process at the state level because they lacked the credibility to do so.
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