Labour unions and the federal government yesterday, agreed on an eight- week deadline to resolve all the issues and implement the resolutions arising from the demands of labour over the recent removal of petrol subsidy by government.
The two parties announced the decision after their meeting in Abuja.
Labour was represented at the meeting by the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) led by Messrs Joe Ajaero, and Festus Osifo, respectively while the government’s delegation had the chief of staff to the president, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, special adviser for revenue, Zachaeus Adedeji, special adviser for energy, Olu Verheijen, permanent secretary, ministry of labour and employment, Kachallom Daju, among the others.
Briefing journalists after talks, Osifo said the parties agreed that all discussions on the fuel subsidy matter should be concluded within eight weeks.
“The purpose of the meeting today (yesterday) is actually to put together the framework, what we submitted as our demand, how will they be delivered and so we are looking at that framework, the government came with what they think will work, we also made some input. From this night, we are going to continue the work in order to have that framework together.
“We agreed that anything we are putting together we are going to conclude everything in eight weeks. Everything must be rolled out within that time not something that we are going to leave endlessly. They have submitted the framework to us, we have looked at it, and we have made input to it, this night we will continuously work on it in order for us to come up with the deliverables.
“If you look at the communiqué that was signed in our last meeting, there are some action items in the communiqué. So it’s actually how these action items will be delivered. For example, we need to have a Presidential Steering Committee that will have to oversee everything.
“We also need to have technical sub-committees because if we talk about the issue of CNG, we need experts, the issue of CNG you need those people that are willing to invest, the issue of CNG, you need the national oil company, the NNPCL to come up what they need to do and the time with which they are going to deliver.
“There are some technicalities that are required beyond this meeting, so those technical committees will be subsumed into Presidential committees but we must conclude everything maximum in eight weeks.
“So those technical committees some will submit their reports in one week, when they submit in one week, we implement, when they submit in two weeks we will implement but the last should not exceed eight weeks.
“The terms of reference of these committees are going to be agreed on between today and tomorrow. We are looking at five broad technical committees that will be subsumed into Presidential Steering Committee. There must be timelines in these terms of reference but the maximum should not exceed eight weeks. By next week Monday, we will be here again, same time,” he said.
For his part, the spokesman for the president, Mr. Dele Alake said the meeting considered the short-term, medium-term and long-term measures in resolving the issue with the government.
“The immediate, are those that can be of low-hanging fruit in the short term, the medium term and the long term.
“So those list of demands in terms of implementation and execution fall into those three broad categories of short, medium and long term categories. So that’s what we decided today and other meetings will still be held in order to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.
“One group has been constituted at today’s meeting, there is a steering committee that will be like a clearing house, there are other groups set up comprising both parties, government and labour members and these groups will work together very harmoniously and efficiently to arrive at the final resolution of all these demands and what we call interventions.”
