The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has claimed that the Federal
Government stopped paying N35, 000 minimum wage after first month despite
having the revenue to pay.
The President of the Trade Union Congress, Festus Osifo,
made this claim in an interview with Arise Television on Monday.
According to the TUC, the government has stopped the
promised 6-month wage award payment after the first payment was made.
Meanwhile, the union has given President Bola Tinubu a
10-point agenda as part of its demands to the federal government.
Osifo said the Nigerian government has the required revenues
to meet the demands of the trade union, but lacks the will to “actually do what
is right.”
He said, “If you’ve signed an agreement and you’re finding
it difficult to implement, what you do normally is for you to call the other
party, and you sit down together. But we don’t even think that is the
challenge, we don’t think that is the problem.
“Because today, you could see from the federation account
how much they share every month, it has doubled compared to the figures that
they were sharing or the amount of money that they were sharing as at
April/May.
“Today, they share trillions of naira, that shows that even
if the value of this money has plummeted, even if the value has gone down, but
the physical note is there, the volume has actually gone up.
“So, they could actually take care of this. It is not
because they don’t have revenue, but it is the will for them to actually do
what is right. You know very well, that as at when this government came in, the
exchange rate was somewhere around N450 to a dollar. But today, officially, it
is over N900, which is times two. That has actually made the government to be
earning more money.”
Osifo noted that the government had not notarised the
10-point agenda that the TUC had presented to the government, which was
eventually agreed with.
He said, “The last
point in that agreement that we reached as at then contained the fact that it
will be a consent judgement, but up till now, to the best information available
to us, that has not been done. As at today, it’s not been placed before the court
of law for it to be adopted as a consent judgement.
“But even beyond
that, there are some provisions in that agreement that we felt that government,
they have not implemented to the latter.”
He further said, “It is left for government to tell us the
reason why they have not taken that document to court, it’s left for them. But
for us, our responsibility is to hold them accountable to be sure and certain
that every statement in that agreement as agreed with them must be
implemented.”
Osifo then said that the demands that the TUC listed in the
10-point agenda came about as they considered the suffering of the average
Nigerian because of high rising prices due to inflation, the removal of fuel
subsidy, and other economic challenges.
He stated, “It was based on this that the government came up
with this 10-point agenda, because we feel that if government is sincere enough
to implement these and put frameworks in place to address all these, the life
of an average Nigerian will be better.”
“This government must sit down, buckle its belt and address
the issues that are affecting Nigerians, ” he said.
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Labour and TUC are wicked,
ReplyDeleteWhy can't you bend the FG,
State and local government workers are left to for in your agreement,
See how wicked you you are,
All of us are buying from same market.
Please call for strike again