The Labour unions, on Wednesday, has lambasted the Federal Government for slashing the supplementary budgetary allocation for wage awards to federal civil servants by N100bn, warning that this was not the agreement they had with the government.
Data obtained from the newly Revised 2023 Supplementary Budget, indicated that the government swapped the controversial N5bn presidential yacht votes for Navy barges, increased the budget for defence from and earmarked N20bn as capital supplementation for the National Intelligence Agency.
In the proposed document, the four-month wage award was to cost the Federal Government around N210bn.
However, the approved and newly revised document showed that it would now cost the Federal Government about N110bn.
You will recall that the Federal Government, as part of steps to assuage labour unions, had granted a wage award of N35,000 to all Federal Government workers “beginning from September pending when a new national minimum wage is expected to have been signed into law.”
President Bola Tinubu had declared during his Independence Day speech that “low-grade workers” in the federal civil service would be awarded a wage of N25,000.
The amount was then increased to N35,000 following discussions with the organised labour unions.
It is still unknown why the Federal Government decided to slash the allocation of wage awards for federal workers, but the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and the Trade Union Congress, TUC warned that this would be resisted.
Commenting on the development, the Assistant General Secretary ot the NLC, Chris Onyeka, said the agreement was for the government to raise the wages of federal civil servants and not to reduce them.
Also speaking, the Head of Information, NLC, Benson Upah, said the behaviour is not inconsistent with the psychology of this government.
The TUC warned the Federal Government against playing games with the wage award for Nigerian workers.
The National Deputy President, TUC, Tommy Etim, said, “The government cannot play games with the wage award because it was an agreement reached with the organised labour and the instrument of agreement reached was deposited in the court.
Efforts to get the Presidency to speak on why the award was reduced were unsuccessful, as officials contacted at the villa could not provide any explanation.
