Politics

Fuel subsidy: FG, labour set 8-week deadline to agree on intervention measures

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2 years ago

The Federal Government and organized labour have set a deadline of eight weeks within which to come to a common ground on the framework for delivering expected intervention following the removal of petroleum subsidy.

This was part of the resolution reached on Monday during a meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, of the federal government and representatives of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) led by its president, Joe Ajaero, and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) led by Festus Osifo.

The meeting also set up a steering committee to consider the various demands presented by labour to produce the framework for what is to be done by August 14.

Disclosing this to correspondents after the meeting, Osifo said that the parties will reconvene Monday next week to review the framework marshalled.

He said: “We have concluded our meeting. If you remember very well, the last time that we were here, that labour, TUC, and NLC met with the government about two weeks ago, we agreed that we are going to reconvene today, that is the 19th of June. We just reconvened, we had a meeting, although brief.

“The purpose of the meeting today is actually to put together the framework, what we submitted as our demand, how will they be delivered, and so we are looking at those frameworks. The government came with what they think will work. We also made some input. From this night, we are going to continue the work in order to have that framework together.

“We agreed that anything we are putting together, we are going to conclude everything in eight weeks. Everything must be rolled out within that time, not something that we are going to leave endlessly.

“They have submitted the framework to us. We have looked at it, and we have made input to it. This night we will continuously work on it in order for us to come up with the deliverables.

“If you look at the communique that was signed in our last meeting, there are some action items in the communique. So, it’s actually how will these action items will be delivered.

“For example, we need to have a Presidential Steering Committee that will have to oversee everything. We also need to have Technical sub-committees because if we talk about the issue of CNG, we need experts, the issue of CNG you need those people that are willing to invest, the issue of CNG, you need the national oil company, the NNPCL to come up with what they need to do and the time with which they are going to deliver.

“There are some technicalities that are required beyond this meeting. So, those technical committees will be subsumed into Presidential committees but all these we must conclude everything maximum in eight weeks.

“So, those technical committees, some will submit their reports in one week. When they submit in one week, we implement, when they submit in two weeks we will implement but the last should not exceed eight weeks.

“The terms of reference of these committees are going to be agreed on between today and tomorrow. We are looking at five broad technical committees that will be subsumed into Presidential Steering Committee. There must be timelines in these terms of reference, but the maximum should not exceed eight weeks. By next week Monday, we will be here again, same time.”

Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties, Communication, and Strategies, Dele Alake, said that the meeting considered the short-term, medium-term and long-term measures in resolving the issue with the government.

He said: “We reconvened today. Both parties went through this list, and we ticked off the viable ones, those things are broken into three categories. The immediate those that can be of low hanging fruit in the short term, the medium term and the long term.

“So those list of demands in terms of implementation and execution fall into those three broad categories of short, medium and long term categories. So, that’s what we decided today and other meetings will still be held in order to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.

“One group has been constituted at today’s meeting, there is a steering committee that will be like a clearing house, there are other groups set up comprising both parties, government and labour members, and these groups will work together very harmoniously and efficiently to arrive at the final resolution of all these demands and what we call interventions.”

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