The Secretary General of the National
Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring
Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), Comrade
Issa Aremu, has decried the non-payment
of workers’ salaries by 22 state
governments in the country, saying the
development is unacceptable.
In a statement he issued in Kaduna on
Thursday, Aremu, who is also the vice
president of the Nigeria Labour Congress,
NLC, described the development as a
wage theft, wage robbery and economic
crime.
The NLC vice president noted that the
same governors, who had failed to pay
workers their salaries for more than three
months, were able to come up with funds
to pay their delegates during the just
concluded party primary elections across
the states.
He, therefore, urged governors of the
affected states to devise the same means
they used to source for funds to pay
delegates, to settle the workers’ salaries
without further delay.
He said: “We see that delay in payment of
salaries as wage theft, wage robbery. It is
actually an economic crime because
Nigeria Labour law says thou shall pay
the worker as and when due. In fact by
22nd of every month you must have paid
the workers fully.
“We never heard of any delegate being
owed a single penny during the primary
elections, but they cannot get money to
pay the workers. In fact, some of the
delegates even bought new cars and
properties after the primaries because the
money they got in just few days is much
more than what workers earn in many
months”.
Comrade Aremu further noted that it was
time for the Federal Government to review
upward the national minimum wage in
order to reflect with emerging economic
challenges and also warned against any
attempt by government to further
impoverish the Nigerian workers with
reduction in pay or loss of jobs on
account of the recently announced
austerity measure by the Federal
government.
He also pointed out that the $65 per
barrel of crude oil as captured in the
2015 budget confirmed that Nigeria is an
oil dependent economy contrary to the
claim by the Minister of Finance and
Coordinating Minister for the Economy,
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala that the budget is
projected on a non-oil revenue basis.
Instead, the labour leader believed that
sustainable budgets were the ones based
on revenue arising from real sector of the
economy such as domestic manufacturing
and exportation of finished goods.
Mr Aremu said that the National
Assembly, while debating the budget
proposal, should put policies that will
grow the real sectors of the economy and
also ensure that the Central Bank of
Nigeria lowers the interest rate and stop
the free fall of the Naira which will
undermine purchasing power of working
class Nigerians.
He also asked the National Assembly to
make sure the budget captured practical
measures on reducing cost of governance,
which must begin with drastic reduction
of pay and allowances of the Executive
and Legislature.

http://www.informationng.com/2014/12/22-state-governments-still-owe-workers-over-3-months-salaries-nlc.html

http://www..com/2014/12/22-state-governments-still-owe-workers.html

Really?

F