The Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress
have thumbed down the N500bn palliative proposed by President Bola Tinubu,
stating that it is grossly inadequate to assuage the hardships confronting
workers sequel to the fuel subsidy removal.
They are demanding a 300 per cent salary increase to enable
workers to cope with the challenges imposed by the deteriorating economic
situation that came with the removal of the controversial fuel subsidy.
On Wednesday, the President wrote to the House of
Representatives seeking approval for N500bn to cushion the effects of petrol
subsidy removal.
Tinubu’s request was contained in a letter sent to the
National Assembly and read during plenary by the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas.
The President had announced the petrol subsidy removal
during his inaugural address on May 29, 2023, in response to claims that the
subsidy regime favoured the rich more than the average Nigerians, among other
reasons.
In his letter, the President proposed an amendment to the
2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act.
It read, “I write to the House of Reps to approve the
amendment of the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act in accordance with the
attached.
“The request has become necessarily important to, among
other things, the source for funds necessary to provide palliatives to mitigate
the effect of the removal of fuel subsidy on Nigerians.
“Thus, the sum of N500bn only has been extracted from the
2022 Supplementary Act of N819,536,937,815 for the provision of palliative to
cushion the effect of petrol subsidy removal.”
The president said he hoped the lawmakers would consider his
request “expeditiously.”
The House is expected to hold a plenary today on the
president’s request.
Last December, the National Assembly passed a supplementary
budget of N819bn for the 2022 fiscal year and also extended the implementation
of the 2022 budget till March 31, 2023.
In May, the National Assembly passed the amendment to the
2022 supplementary budget to extend the implementation of the capital
components to December 2023.
But unimpressed by the amount contained in the President’s
letter, the NLC noted that the money would not be enough to cater for 125
million Nigerians who are believed to be living in poverty.
The National Treasurer of the NLC, Hakeem Ambali, who spoke
in an interview with our correspondent in Abuja, questioned the extent to which
the palliative would cover.
When asked if the amount would be sufficient, he said,
“Definitely not. We have over 125m Nigerians that are technically poor. To what
extent can this cushion the effects of this economic hardship?”
Speaking on ways by which the President can mitigate the
effect of subsidy removal, the NLC official asked for “Minimum wage review of
300 per cent to all workers; granting licences to individuals for modular
refineries to refine petrol locally; granting economic stimulus loan to
SMEs at 15 per cent rate.’’
He added, ‘’The government should provide social benefits
for aged and unemployed youths; agric loans to farmers and youths through the
Agric Bank and community banks at single digit rate; provide alternative energy
supply such as massive investment in solar power and Compressed Natural Gas to
motorists.
“Fix the refineries; reverse the privatization of
electricity back to the state due to poor performance; Execute metro rail line
projects in all state capitals and reduction of school fees for students of
tertiary institutions.”
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We are not in support of any pay rise bcs only Fed govt workers will benefit. Those at state and LG will not get anything. Even if d whole budget is given to govs they will be greedy to implement. They will only use us to further enrich themselves
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