NLC, TUC need vigilance to avoid experience of failed N500b palliative in 2016 budget
As workers’ nationwide await the announcement of new national minimum wage, The President of Senior Staff Association of Universities, Teaching Hospitals, Research Institutes and Associate Institutions (SSAUTHRIAI)”, Benjamin Akintola has called on the leadership of the two leading workers’ unions to avoid the horrible experience of non-release of the promised N500b palliative meant to cushion the effects of hiking fuel price from N86 to N145 in 2016.
Business Hilights recalls that the federal government had used the inclusion of the fund into the 2016 budget to convince Nigerians on the hike in fuel price, but there was no trace in the disbursement of the money up till now even as Nigerians continue to buy fuel at N145 till date.
Government had assured in 2016 that it will flood the nation’s highways with buses and other forms of palliatives but no state can boost of taking deliveries of any new bus from the federal government till date.
Akintola while speaking at the National Metallurgical Development Centre in Jos, the Plateau State capital, expressed concerns over the lukewarm attitude of government towards the plights of Nigerian workers, saying if the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC), this same government that used their collective intelligence in 2016 may repeat same in the determination of new minimum wage expected to be announced soon.
Explaining more on the N500b palliative in the 2016 budget, Akintola averred that “I was there when the TUC and Nigeria Labour Congress were discussing one night at the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation when they were to increase the fuel price from N86 to N145 and it was stated that N500bn was included in the 2016 budget as a palliative. They set up a committee; in fact it was that N500bn that divided TUC and NLC.
“The TUC said that since the government said they had put that amount in the budget as a palliative, there was no need to go on strike. But the NLC said they were going on strike. That was how the unions were divided.
“The N500bn is nowhere to be found till this moment. Whether it is missing, we don’t know. The committee was set up. I read the report. We were to be given N20 per cent across board to serve as transport allowance because of the increment in the pump price of fuel. It was never implemented,” President of SSAUTHRIAI recalled.
The group is one of the affiliates of TUC.
