Invest in mass transit, Labour committee advises Tinubu on palliative

Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, has expressed worry over the president’s neglect on its committee set up to work out the palliatives to cushion the effects of subsidy removal.

The president of the Union, Timmy Okon, who was speaking at a press briefing organised by Labour Writers Association of Nigeria on Thursday said the Labour union is not happy that government jettson the committee without having their input.

He explained that the government after its Inauguration pronouncing the removal of subsidy, invited them to ask what could be done to cushion the effects of subsidy. He said the meeting of the committee had not taken place when they woke up one day and heard that the president had walked up to the World Bank for loan.

“Borrowing money from the World Bank, it’s not in the best interest of the economy. We felt that the government would have waited for the committee to submit their template,” he said.

According to him, the president acted on fair need, that is thinking for the people and not the people thinking for themselves.

“The committee would have set up a work plan to strategies what the people need. The N8000 palliatives for each household means that after six months, the people will be brought to poverty again. It will not help the economy. The president’s act on us was trust deficiency, where the government said something and did another thing. It would have been more honorable if the president allowed the committee to send in their template, identifying what the people needed. Why were we invited to open discussion? If we were invited and we did not attend, the people will say that labor jettison the president but we honored the invite and were waiting for the president’s call. We were disappointed that he pulled out and we are not happy,” he expressed.

He also used the medium to advise the government to go into mass transportation since it’s the major challenge we are having right now. He said once the issue of transportation is taken care of, the cost of goods and services will be reduced such that someone going with 1000 Naira can come with a change.

In investing in a transport system to cushion the effects of fuel Subsidy, he told FG to first fix up all the portholes on the road so that the buses that will be brought in will be sustained.

He added that the government can also cluster those in the informal sector, who are into productive venture, and then pump in money into them; that will have a turn-over effect that will make them employers of labor, thereby reducing unemployment.

Speaking on Bola Tinubu’s recent declaration of state of emergency on Food, he said, the government should declare a state of emergency on security, this according to him ought to have been done before the declaration.

He disclosed that the insecurity in Nigeria has affected a lot of things and in most places, people pay to go to the farm.

“Nigeria is blessed. Their problem is that they do not engage people who know the economy, instead, they call people that things have worked for them in 200 years from where they are coming from to drive the economy”