By Tina Amanda
The Chairman of Trade Union Congress (TUC) Rivers State, Comrade Ikechukwu Onyefuru, says the federal government has no excuse not to resolve and fund the items signed in the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between organsied labour and government as there is enough money already from subsidy removal.
Comrade Onyefuru disclosed this in an interview with our Correspondent, claiming that an average of four hundred billion naira have been saved so far from the subsidy removal, going to labour calculation.
He affirmed that the federal government is expected to commence execution of the items contained in the MOU before the expiration of the thirty (30) days warning strike suspension.
“Remember we called for a warning a strike which has been suspended for thirty days and we signed an MOU with the federal government and we expect them to commence the execution of the items contained there.
“Failure in the next thirty days may mean commencing strike action without notice most of those items discussed in the MOU, we expect actions, and like you know it requires funding so if they are claiming that subsidy is gone no issues around that. They have also told us they were spending an average of four hundred billion monthly for subsidy.
“Going by our calculation savings of approximately an average of four hundred billion naira is already been done, and if we have that savings we expect that issues around provisions of CNG buses will be settled, payment of 25,000 naira to fifteen million (15,000,000) families, thirty-five thousand (35,000) naira wage grant to workers in the federal civil services on treasury payroll.
“All issues that were discussed in the MOU we expect to be resolved or actions commenced to begin to resolve those issues. Where actions are not taken to begin to resolve them clearly we will commence strike action at the end of the 30 days suspension which has been signed as MOU.
“We are hopeful that the federal government should be responsible enough to make that happen, if that does not happen it means labour would be left with no option than to lift the suspension on the strike action and commence strike without notice”.
The organized labour on Tuesday signed a 15-point memorandum of understanding with the Federal Government.
The agreement was signed as a last-minute effort to avert the planned nationwide strike.
The memorandum of understanding was signed by the representatives of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, the Trade Union Congress, TUC, and the Federal Government.
Arising from the withdrawal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) by the Federal Government and the resultant increase in the price of the commodity, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) issued a strike notice which had elapsed and they were poised to embark on a strike billed to commence on Tuesday, the 3rd of October, 2023. Consequently, a meeting was called by the Federal Government to avert the strike and after much discussion, a 15-point MOU agreement was reached.
