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Tag: Minister of Labour

  • FG has delivered 90% of agreements with Labour – Minister of Labour, Nkiruka Onyejeocha,

    FG has delivered 90% of agreements with Labour – Minister of Labour, Nkiruka Onyejeocha,

    Nkiruka Onyejeocha, Nigeria’s Minister of Labour has said that Federal Government has achieved about 90% of the agreement it had with the Organised Labour last October.

    Onyejeocha said the Federal Government had ticked about 90% of the 15-point memorandum of understanding it signed with the Organised Labour on October 2, 2023.

    According to her, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (TUC), Joe Ajaero, told government representatives at a meeting on Sunday that the protest was not about the government’s commitment to the October agreement but food inflation.

    She posited that food security and economic prosperity were part of the priorities of the President Bola Tinubu administration.

    She appealed to Nigerians to be patient with the new government as the administration is in its planting season with harvest on the horizon.

    Some of the agreement include granting wage award of N35,000 to workers, inauguration of minimum wage committee, and suspension of the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT) on Diesel for six.

    On the provision of high capacity CNG buses for mass transit in Nigeria, the minister said funds had been released for the purpose but “there are certain things you cannot control; you cannot control the number of days a shipment or a container will stay in the port”.

    Nigeria is battling rising inflation, food inflation, forex crisis, economic hardship and high cost of living occasioned by the removal of petrol subsidy, attracting protests in parts of the country.

    The Presidency had engaged labour leaders in a last-minute talks on Monday night but the meeting ended in a stalemate as the NLC insisted that the protest was going to hold.

    Though the Trade Union Congress (TUC) said it was not part of the strike, the NLC grounded economic activities across the country on Tuesday, with labour leader Ajaero, saying that the protest was about hunger and not just a clamour for a review of the minimum wage.

    Labour later suspend the protest on Tuesday night, after day one of the demonstration, saying the objectives of the two-day protest had been achieved on the first day of the rally.

  • BREAKING: Former Labour Minister, Gwadabe is dead

    BREAKING: Former Labour Minister, Gwadabe is dead

    A former Minister of Labour and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Musa Gwadabe, is dead.

    Gwadabe died on Wednesday morning at the age of 86 at a Kano hospital after a prolonged illness.

    A daughter of the deceased, who is also a worker at Radio Nigeria Pyramid FM Kano, Aisha Musa Gwadabe confirmed the death, saying the funeral prayer of the late minister would hold at 2.00 pm (today) at his residence off Maiduguri road, in Kano.

    He is survived by two wives, 11 children, and grandchildren.

  • Just In: Minister of Labor, allegedly deploys security men against protesting staff of NSITF

    Just In: Minister of Labor, allegedly deploys security men against protesting staff of NSITF

    The Minister of Labour, Employment & Productivity, Sen. Chris Ngige has allegedly deployed thugs to stop the protesting Staff of Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund at the Office Headquarters in Abuja.

    TheNewsGuru.com, (TNG) recalls that the staff have been protesting against Salary Adjustment Delay which was approved to commence by January this year being 2023

    The protest started last Thursday when the workers shut down the offices of the agency across the 36 states of the federation and its head office in Abuja.

    Workers of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) on Thursday shut down its head office in Abuja over a delay in the implementation of their salary adjustment

    The aggrieved workers under the aegis of Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) and the National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (NUBIFI), stormed the NSITF office at the early hours of Thursday with loudspeakers, chanting and singing solidarity songs.

    The protesters displayed placards carrying different inscriptions such as “Ngige again! Why you Always” “ Even Pensions are not remitted after deduction,” “Say no to old Salary regime,” ” Ngige don’t kill NSITF,” and many more.

    It was gathered that ASSBIFI, an affiliate of the trade union congress (TUC) and NUBIFI, an affiliate of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), have had several meetings with the NSITF management and the Ministry of Labour and Employment, but the meetings have failed to lead to the resolution of the dispute.

    The protesting workers said that the NSITF management had agreed to begin the implementation of the new salary adjustment and review in January 2023, but kept shifting the date.

    The protesters who came from the agency’s different branches promised not to leave the environment until the needful was done, noting that it was now or never.

    Some of the protesters complained that they were demoted because of the implementation of the new salary, yet they refused to implement it.

    “I was demoted from level 13 to level 12 because of the so-called implementation and yet nothing is happening,” one of them said.

    Bala Tijani, the National Vice President of the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) said that the workers were being humiliated.

    “We are being humiliated; humiliation in terms of when you have an institution that has its last salary review about 10 years ago, 2013. Staff members in the name of this reviewed salary have been demoted. They refused to implement it after they have demoted people, it’s painful,” he said.

    Rather than having a decent Response and approach to dowse the situation, the Hon minister resorted to highering Thugs who are currently occupying the Promises of the Headquarters, ready to assault any protesting Staff on sight.

  • FG assures civil servants of full allowances payment by Jan

    FG assures civil servants of full allowances payment by Jan

    The federal government has assured federal civil servants that their allowances will be paid in full by January as soon as President Muhammadu Buhari approves the payment.

    Disclosing this while fielding questions from journalists on Thursday, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, said contrary to speculations that the Federal Government was proposing a salary increase for civil servants, the true position was that the federal civil servants’ allowances would be paid in full as soon as Buhari approved the payment.

    He said the idea of paying the allowances to the federal civil servants was muted as part of measures to cushion the effects of the current economic hardship in the country.

    The minister disclosed that the workers’ allowances had been tabulated by the ministry and sent to the President for approval.

    According to him, the issue of salary increments and remunerations for the workers is not a unilateral decision as it will require a roundtable deliberation between the workers union and the Federal Government before any salary adjustment can be effected.

    Ngige commended the Buhari-led administration for the Second Niger Bridge, Enugu-Okigwe-Umuahia-Aba-Port Harcourt expressway as well as the renovation and upgrading of the Enugu Airport.

    He listed the projects as some of the developmental projects recorded by the present administration in the South-East, adding that the region benefitted more in terms of critical infrastructures.

    He described Buhari as a kind-hearted person who is always concerned about the welfare of Nigerians, which was why “he directed all the ministers to go to their respective hometowns during the Yuletide and distribute both cash and food items to the masses as part of measures to rehabilitate the less privileged in the society.”

    He said, ‘The idea of paying the allowances to the federal civil servants was muted as part of measures to cushion the effects of the current economic hardship in the country.

    “Contrary to speculations that the Federal Government is proposing a salary increase for civil servants, the true position is that the federal civil servants’ allowances would be paid in full as soon as Buhari approves the payment.

    “Buhari is humane and kind-hearted but those who don’t know him or who are not close to him will think that he is wicked. Having worked closely under him, I can attest to the fact that he is a responsible and trustworthy man.

    “This current administration is working very hard to finish strong and needed the support of all Nigerians at this dying minute.”

  • APC demands for Ngige to step-aside over refusal to endorse Tinubu

    APC demands for Ngige to step-aside over refusal to endorse Tinubu

    Murtala Ajaka, deputy national publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has called for the resignation of the minister of labour and employment, Dr Chris Ngige, following failure to support the party’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu.

    Ajaka, who asked the minister to resign, was reacting to comments made by Ngige when he appeared on Politics Today, a programme of Channels Television.

    During the programme, when asked whether he would endorse Tinubu or back Peter Obi, the candidate of the Labour Party, Ngige described the question as difficult.

    He said, “Both of them are my friends. My choice will be in the ballot box. Whether conscience or no conscience, on that day in February, I’ll have one vote.”

    Reacting to minister’s response, Ajaka, in a statement, criticised the minister over the remarks.

    In his words: “The presidential primary election had long ended and the party had settled for the choice of Senator Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, hence all the party leaders should put their ambitions behind them for now to deliver the party’s presidential ticket.

    “It is expected of a serving minister in an APC government to be a trusted Apostle of Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidency in 2023, who along with other party leaders laboured to ensure the enthronement of the same government in 2015 which they are now serving in.

    “Chief Ngige and other APC appointees, especially in the federal cabinet should not forget in a hurry that they are holding onto party’s mandate, hence the need to protect it with whatever it requires, but if they can no longer protect the interest of the APC in public and that of our presidential candidate (Tinubu), I think the honourable thing to do is to step aside from the government formed by the APC.

    “With this type of public comment from a sitting minister in a ruling party who cannot declare on national television his choice of a presidential candidate, how on earth is the party expected to fare in the forthcoming presidential election?”

  • STRIKE: FG to resume talks with ASUU next week

    STRIKE: FG to resume talks with ASUU next week

    The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, has said talks with the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will resume next week.

     

    Disclosing this on Friday, while making the opening remarks at a meeting between the government side and the striking National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) in his office, Ngige noted that the resumed talks would be with a view to ending the prolonged closure of Nigerian public universities.

     

    Ngige asserted that multiple industrial disputes in the education sector could have been averted if the unions in the sector took advantage of his open-door policy like those in the health sector, which he said culminated in the peace currently enjoyed in that sector.

     

    Ministry of Labour and Employment, Patience Onuobia, the minister who also decried the rivalry between the education unions, noted that everybody is important in the university system.

     

    He assured that the government was tackling all the disputes in the education sector holistically, knowing full well that none of the unions could function effectively without the others.

     

    He said: “If you are from any union, you don’t need to book an appointment to see me. The doctors started using that advantage and JOHESU also did the same. That is why the Health Sector is quiet.

     

    “But the education unions don’t take advantage of my open door policy. We don’t have to cry over spilt milk. Let us look at your issues to see the ones we can handle immediately, the ones we can do in the medium term and the ones we can do in the long term.