. Commends Transmission of PIB to National Assembly
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has commended the Federal Government and organised labour for reaching a truce that led to Monday’s suspension of nationwide strike by the leaderships of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC).
According to the party in a statement, “the welcome and positive development is in line with the proven pro-people stance of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC administration which has always put the welfare and interest of the masses first in policy decisions and implementation. Indeed, the shelved strike is a victory for the Nigerian masses.”
According to the party, federal government in temporarily suspending the application of the cost-reflective electricity tariff adjustments by DISCOs to allow for an all-inclusive and independent review of the power sector operations is evident of the government’s pro-people stance.
It welcomed the agreement reached between the government and labour such as ” the urgency to rehabilitate the nation’s refineries and increase our local refining capacity so as to reduce the over dependence on costly importation of refined petroleum products, the removal of tax on minimum wage to cushion the impacts of the policy on the vulnerable; immediate provision to organized labour of 133 CNG/LPG driven mass transit buses and 10% housing allocation to Nigerian workers under the ongoing Ministry of Housing and Finance initiative through the NLC and TUC, among others
“To cushion the impacts of the downstream sector deregulation and electricity tariffs adjustment on the Nigerian masses, the federal government is among others implementing palliatives which can be easily assessed by Nigerian workers and financed from the Economic Sustainability Programme Intervention Fund with subsequent provision for 240,000 under the auspices of NLC and TUC for participation in agricultural ventures through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Ministry of Agriculture.,” it said.
It praised President Buhari for the transmission of the much-awaited Petroleum Industry Bill 2020 to the National Assembly and argued that the PIB will provide a necessary legal framework to the long-sought reforms and ongoing deregulation of the petroleum sector in the country.
