The Nigeria Labour Congress, on Wednesday have kicked against the N500bn subsidy palliative proposed by President Bola Tinubu.
The Union said the N500bn requested is inadequate to mitigate the hardship confronting workers due to petrol subsidy removal.
President Tinubu on Wednesday, wrote to the National Assembly seeking amendment to the 2022 supplementary appropriation Act, to allow the Federal Government source N500 billion for palliative, to cushion the effect of subsidy removal.
Tinubu’s request was contained in a letter sent to the National Assembly and read during plenary by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas.
It read, “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.”
However, the NLC National Treasurer, Hakeem Ambali, in an interview, questioned the extent to which the palliative would cover.
He said the money would not be enough to cater for 125 million Nigerians who are believed to be living in poverty.
Speaking on ways by which the President can mitigate the effect of subsidy removal, the NLC official asked for “Minimum wage review of 300 per cent to all workers; granting licences to individuals for modular refineries to refine petrol locally; granting economic stimulus loan to SMEs at 15 per cent rate.’’
He added, ‘’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.”
