As part of effort to prevent the impending strike action by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has called for a meeting with the leadership of the union.
Kukuruku News gathered that the labour union had threatened to embark on the nationwide industrial action beginning from Wednesday, 29th March, 2023.
NLC’s threat come as a result of the cash crunch, fuel scarcity and electricity tariff increase ravaging the country lately.
Ngige invited the leadership of the NLC and the Central Bank of Nigeria management to a meeting in his office on Monday, to resolve their differences.
President of the union Joe Ajaero, and the General Secretary, Emmanuel Ugboaja led a 10-man delegation for the meeting.
Similarly, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, was accompanied by two Deputy Governors, Kingsley Obiora (Economic Policy) and Ade Shonubi (Organised Private Sector).
In his opening remarks, Ngige denied the allegation by NLC that his mnistry did nothing about the issue.
According to him, on receiving the letter from NLC, he forwarded same to the CBN Governor before travelling out of the country for an International Labour Organisation Governing Board meeting and directed the Permanent Secretary and Trade Union Services and Industrial Relations Department to follow up.
Also, Emefiele in his separate remark said when he received the letter from the labour ministry, he called the President of NLC to brief him on steps taken to alleviate the sufferings of the masses.
Emefiele said he went further to have a meeting with NLC president, which he said resulted in the large volume of funds made available to the deposit money banks.
Ajaero urged the CBN to improve on their services, regretting the information gap created in the implementation of the naira redesign.
“The NLC could not have stopped CBN from taking good decisions and implementing them in the interest of the nation. If stakeholders were invited and briefed on the policy, when the people complain, NLC would explain everything to them. But in this case, the CBN did it alone. Moreover, it is a wrong time for administering such a national policy, he added.
Meanwhile, the National Executive Committee of NLC will meet today to decide of the next line of action.
