The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) kicked against the N500bn palliative proposed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, saying it will not be enough to ease the hardships faced by workers due to the fuel subsidy removal.
National treasurer of the NLC, Hakeem Ambali, demanded a 300 percent salary increase to enable workers to cope with the harsh economic realities.
“We have over 125m Nigerians that are technically poor. To what extent can this cushion the effects of this economic hardship?” Ambali said.
Ambali suggested a minimum wage review of 300 percent to all workers; granting licenses to individuals for modular refineries to refine petrol locally; granting economic stimulus loans to SMEs at a 15 percent rate.
“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.”
Tinubu on Wednesday sought the approval of the House of Representatives for a N500billion palliative to soften the effects of subsidy removal.
In his letter to the House of Representatives on Wednesday, Tinubu proposed an amendment to the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act.
“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 House is expected to hold a plenary today on the president’s request.
