Port Harcourt – The Trade Union Congress, TUC, has urged the Federal Government to commence the execution of agreements contained in the Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, it signed with organised labour before the expiration of the 30 days suspended strike by the labour unions.
Recall that the organised labour on October 2 suspended its planned nationwide strike and signed a 15-point MoU with the Federal Government as a last-minute effort to avert the strike arising from the withdrawal of subsidy on petrol by the government and the resultant inflation in the country.
TUC Chairman in Rivers State, Comrade Ikechukwu Onyefuru, urged the government to begin to execute the terms of the MoU and fund the items therein from the savings from the removal of fuel subsidy, maintaining that the government has so far saved N400 billion from the subsidy removal, according to labour calculations.
He said: “Remember, we called for a warning strike, which has been suspended for thirty days and we signed an MoU with the Federal government. So, we expect them to commence the execution of the items contained there.
“Failure in the next 30 days means commencing the strike action without notice. Most of those items discussed in the MOU, we expect action, and like you know, it requires funding. So, if they are claiming that fuel subsidy is gone, no issues around that. They have also told us they were spending an average of N400 billion monthly on subsidy.
“Going by our calculations, savings of approximately an average of N400 billion have already been done, and if we have that savings, we expect that issues around provisions of CNG buses will be settled, (so also) payment of N25,000 to fifteen million families, and N35,000 wage grant to workers in the federal civil services on treasury payroll.”
“All issues that were discussed in the MOU, we expect to be resolved or actions commenced to begin to resolve those issues. Where actions are not taken to begin to resolve them, we will commence strike action at the end of the 30 days suspension which has been signed as MOU.
“We are hopeful that the federal government should be responsible enough to make that happen. If that does not happen, it means labour would be left with no option than to lift suspension on the strike action and commence strike without notice,” he added.
