Ajaero made his labour’s position known while fielding question by journalists, Friday.
Although his NLC faction along with the Trade Union Congress (TUC) backed out of the ongoing industrial action by labour groups , Ajaero said that his faction along with others had told government to reconstitute the board of PPPRA so that it could work out a legally acceptable price of fuel, adding that government agreed to do so without delay.
As to why the organised labour group shunned the nationwide strike to protest the hike in the petrol price and settled for dialogue for palliatives instead, he his group considered it futile after they realised that government did not make any provision for subsidy in the 2016 fiscal framework, but in its place earmarked N500billion for social welfare.
He further explained that their colleagues in the Ayuba Waba-led NLC told government that they would not sit together to engage in any dialogue with government even when there was need to form a common front in the interest of Nigerian masses and workers.
“So the only reasonable option is for us to dialogue on how best to utilise government’s social welfare provision in the 2016 budget and the gains of price modification.
For us, there is the need to ensure that the mismanagement of SURE-P instituted by former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration after subsidy protest in January 2012 does not repeat itself this time around,” Ajaero stated.
According to him, his group like other trade unions including Trade Union Congress (TUC) and civil society groups were rather concerned on extracting commitment on what palliative measures government should put in place to ease the pains of the masses, and avoid mismanagement of the funds.
“Unlike the mismanagement of SURE-P exercise, we insisted that this exercise must be managed by owners where labour, civil society, comrades of Nigerian political parties, and all students and market women to make sure that the exercise is all inclusive, and Nigerians who the programme is meant for benefit from it. To that extent we agreed that the participation in that committee should be established without further delay,” Ajaero stated.
He further explained that his group urged government to discuss the minimum wage for approval without further delay, having already made representations for N90, 000 (by his own group) and N56, 000 (by other labour group).
TUC which he said also had separate dialogue with government aligned with all the issues his group had raised in the meetings with government earlier that day, and all the parties had agreement with government.
