FG Promises To Resume Payment Of Wage Award This Week

The Federal Government has urged the NLC and TUC to withdraw their notice of strike, promising that it is ready to resume payment of the N35,000 wage award to workers.

Osun Defender reports that the organised labour last Thursday issued a strike notice over what it described as non-implementation of the 16-point agreement it reached during the October last year negotiation meeting.

But the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, who made this plea at a meeting with the leadership of the two unions, promised again that the government would resume payment of the N35,000 wage award to workers.

The medium gathered that the federal government has only paid N35,000 in wage awards to workers twice since September 2023, when the payment was initiated as agreed by both parties—a development many workers had described as “unfair.”.

Speaking before the meeting went into a closed door, Onyejeocha explained that the government had stepped up efforts to complete the implementation of those agreements, adding that she convened the meeting to brief the two Labour centres on the progress of the implementation.

“We indeed agreed, but the government has shown good faith, and considering the urgency of the issue at hand, I called this meeting because dialogue has always been the best way out, and we are all for the well-being of our people.

“I am here to show good cause on why some agreement has not been met,” the minister told the gathering led by the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, and his counterpart from TUC, Festus Osifo, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

But the President of the NLC, Joe Ajaero, enjoined the Federal Government to be committed to beating the deadline of the 14-day ultimatum, which started on February 9, 2024, by ensuring the implementation of that agreement.

Ajaero, who declared that the organised labour had resolved to stand by their ultimatum and that every party to the agreement should endeavour to live up to expectations for the interest of Nigerians and the government, stressed that the Congress would always fulfil its part of the bargain, so long as the federal government would do same.