• FG will meet with governments on complete implementation of minimum wage in October; * Labour to be integrated into Economic Council

By Gift ChapiOdekina, ABUJA, Johnbosco Agbakwuru, and Victor Ahiuma Young

Yesterday, the Federal Government and Organised Labour reached a consensus on how to lower the cost of transportation and the cost of necessities, particularly food.

This occurred on the day that the House of Representatives requested that the Federal Government reverse the recent increase in the price of petrol and move quickly to stabilise the price of cooking gas and petrol through targeted interventions, such as short-term price relief programs, tax breaks or LPG subsidies for low-income households.

In addition, the government decided to call a meeting with state governors to make sure that the N70,000 new minimum wage goes into effect nationally in October, after the meeting that took place yesterday night in the Office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation, or SGF.

According to sources who attended the meeting and spoke with Vanguard, the administration and Labour also decided to keep talking and engaging in order to warm up their previously icy relationship.

“In the first instance, the government committed to provide more than 2,000 CNG conversion kits. In order to fulfil the 90 organised labour commitments made previously, it also pledged to deliver 45 CNG buses to Labour.

In an attempt to lower transportation costs nationwide, the federal government will meet with state governors to completely support the use of CNG buses. Food prices will be impacted as well since this would significantly lower the cost of delivering food to customers from various areas. These are components of the initiatives to lessen the impact on the populace of the loss of subsidies.

Additionally, the administration pledged to call a meeting of the Economic Council in order to put pressure on state governors to guarantee that the new minimum wage becomes effective nationwide this month.

Additionally, it pledged to include workers in the Economic Council, allowing labour to monitor and participate in government economic plans rather than the government imposing policies on labour and Nigerians that would cause unrest or agitation.

They concurred that constant communication between the government and workers is preferable to “jaw-jaw than war-war.”