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State of economy and workers’ issues

By Collins Olayinka, Abuja
11 February 2015   |   11:00 pm
  THERE are many diverse ways the government promotes workers interests beyond salary increments, the Minister of Labour and Productivity Turaki Tanimu has said.  Speaking at the on going 11th delegates’ conference in Abuja, the Minister submitted that the Jonathan administration has demonstrated its willingness to ensure workers have access to more disposable income by…

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THERE are many diverse ways the government promotes workers interests beyond salary increments, the Minister of Labour and Productivity Turaki Tanimu has said.

 Speaking at the on going 11th delegates’ conference in Abuja, the Minister submitted that the Jonathan administration has demonstrated its willingness to ensure workers have access to more disposable income by silent increment in allowances, which normally go without public announcement.

 He also argued that the introduction of the employees compensation scheme executed by the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) has created atmosphere where workers who sustain injuries in the course of work are treated and rehabilitated while the families of those that lost their lives are compensated.  

 With Boko Haram making working environment dangerous to operate in the North East, he said the Federal Government had been able to reduce the Boko Haram activities and confine them from 12 states to three.

 In his speech at the occasion, the All Progressive Party (APC) presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari lamented the negative effects the recent devaluation of the Naira has had on the purchasing power of workers.   

 On the devaluation of the Naira, Buhari explained that the action has always affected the purchasing power of Nigerian workers. 

 “These actions, while necessary to reduce the slide in our currency, have reduced the amount of goods the ordinary Nigerian can purchase with the money he or she has. We are likely to experience a rise in the prices of all goods, especially fuel, bread and foodstuff. The hard times ahead will affect Nigerians in every part of our country, 67 percent of whom already live on less than N200 per day,” he said.

 He then solicited the support of labour movement to APC to come into power in order to liberate the country.

 In his speech, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Pius Anyim, who represented the President, said that he was under instruction from the President to refrain from making political statement.

 He opined that the President was aware that some of the audience comprised workers from Federal and state governments who could participate as ad hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission in the forthcoming elections.

 He gave the assurance that the Boko Haram insurgency, which has been agitating the minds of Nigerians, would soon be brought under control.

 Anyim also assured the conference that the forthcoming election would be better that the 2011 general elections.

 Speaking also on the state of the economy, Anyim, who declared the conference open on behalf of the President, noted that he Federal Government was focusing attention on the creation of business that could generate employment opportunities for Nigerians.

 In his submission, the Governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, condemned the continued importation of refined petroleum products into the country.

He declared that it is rather shameful that the nation’s refineries established by the military and were functional then, are not working under democracy.

 Oshiomhole, who is a former President of the NLC, urged workers in the oil sector to look beyond their plum jobs to insist that the crude oil resources were refined in the nation’s refineries

 The Edo governor said that those benefitting from fuel importation did not have factories giving employment opportunities to Nigerians

 He lamented that in spite of the fact that Nigeria had become the largest economy in Africa, the country was still reputed to be the largest concentration of the unemployed persons on the continent.

 He urged Nigerians to ask questions about the alarming theft of the nation’s oil resources stressing that there was a link between oil theft and job insecurity or unemployment.

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