Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has said Nigerians are still waiting to experience the Renewed Hope Agenda of the President Bola Tinubu-led administration, asserting that their hopes have been dampened in the face of the current parlous economy.
In a New Year statement yesterday by its president and secretary general, Festus Osifo and Nuhu Toro, the labour centre issued a 10-point demand from the current administration this year, stating that the outgone year was one long, excruciating litany of lost opportunities and dashed hopes.
Among the demands, it said all agreements between labour and government, including payment of monthly N35,000 wage award to public servants in local, state and federal services, must be implemented until a new national minimum wage is implemented.
TUC also asked that a new national minimum wage must be negotiated, implemented and if further delayed in the year, arrears must be paid.
The body recalled that in 2023, it strived to ensure that social dialogue with the Federal Government prevailed even when there were skeptics, who alleged the Tinubu administration could not be trusted to implement simple and basic agreements.
To allay the fears, it said organised labour insisted that the October 2, 2023 agreement between them and the administration be notarised, however, it accused the government of serially violating the pact.
Quoting item two, which states that “A minimum wage committee shall be inaugurated within one month from the date of this agreement,” TUC regretted that three months after, no such panel has been set up by the government.
“This was also our experience with this government in at least two previous agreements reached from June 2023,” it added.
The union demanded that inflation, which is currently at 28.20 per cent, must be drastically reduced to the sub-Saharan Africa’s regional average of 9.4 per cent.
It said government at state and federal levels should stop the “unnecessary, economically unwise and unpatriotic tradition of taking loans, especially when the loans only end up being used to purchase expensive jeeps for legislators, pamper members of the executive and their spouses, or in building unnecessary offices and purchasing mundane and sundry things, including stationeries.”
TUC urged the government to stop “its ill-advised devaluation of the national currency that is precipitating collapse of local industries, which need foreign exchange to import raw materials.”
It equally demanded that the high price of PMS at N617 per litre should be drastically reduced to undo the harm to the national economy.
This, the body said, would be achieved by ensuring local production of refined products.
The congress lamented that with the N28.7 trillion budget, with a recurrent expenditure of N9.92 trillion, capital expenditure at N8.7 trillion and debt servicing of N8.25 trillion, could neither stimulate economic growth nor alleviate suffering Nigerians.
TUC said having a careful and critical dissection of the budget would easily reveal that it was primarily and essentially designed to take care of the ruling class.
However, it expressed that the union remains optimistic that with sincere, committed, responsible and responsive leadership, “we should be able to change the narrative and reverse this trend.”
