{"id":263274,"date":"2020-09-27T18:10:06","date_gmt":"2020-09-27T17:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=263274"},"modified":"2020-09-27T18:10:55","modified_gmt":"2020-09-27T17:10:55","slug":"gbajabiamila-offers-nlc-palliatives-to-avert-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=263274","title":{"rendered":"Gbajabiamila offers NLC palliatives to avert strike"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Gbajabiamila
Speaker of House of Reps, Femi Gbajabiamila<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To avert the strike by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) billed to commence on Monday, the House of Representatives has offered organised labour some palliatives.
\nSpeaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, at a negotiation meeting with labour on Sunday in Abuja said the palliatives would be included in the proposed 2021 budget.
\n
\nGbajabiamila said that the budget would soon be presented to the National Assembly, stressing that some palliatives were being considered to cushion the effects of an increase in electricity tariff and fuel price hike.
\nThe palliatives, according to the speaker, includes distribution of food items, reduction of taxes on minimum wage, and payment of some special allowances.
\nOthers are involved in the ownership of housing programmes through mortgage and distribution of special buses to public institutions that run on autogas.
\nGbajabiamila said that the palliatives would go a long way to assuage the suffering of Nigerians.
\nHe said the lawmakers would also make provision in the budget to tackle the eight million deficit of meters to enable Nigerians to access them.
\nGbajabiamila, who described estimated billing as a scam, said: \u201cI have never heard it anywhere in the world, so if we may have to provide for the deficit, we will have to do that.\u201d
\nHe appealed to labour to suspend the planned strike, saying embarking on industrial action at this critical time would not augur well for the citizenry.
\n\u201cYou know, you cannot go on strike at this time, if you go on strike, the people you think you are protecting will be at the receiving end, we share your philosophy regarding workers\u2019 rights.
\n\u201cWe know what Nigerians are going through, our position on electricity billing is obvious, the only thing now is to continue to talk, I am concerned about the people out there.
\n\u201cShutting down the markets, banks and other places of work is my worry, I am concerned about the people,\u201d he said.
\nGbajabiamila said that there was the need for every Nigerian to be properly metered in order to capture the true cost, adding that the lawmakers would consider metering in the 2021 budget.
\nThe President of NLC, Ayuba Wabba, said that the increase in electricity tariff and hike in fuel price had eroded the purchasing power of Nigerian workers.
\nHe said the initial plan was that there would not be an increase in electricity tariff until meters were provided for Nigerians.
\nWabba commended the speaker for the intervention, adding that he had consistently represented the interest of Nigerians.
\nThe NLC president said there was a valid court judgment nullifying the electricity tariff, adding that the judgment of the National Industrial Court asking NLC to stop its planned strike could not be sustained.
\nWabba insisted that the NLC would go ahead with the strike if its demands were not met by the Federal Government before the expiration of the ultimatum.\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaker of House of Reps, Femi Gbajabiamila To avert the strike by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) billed to commence on Monday, the House of Representatives has offered organised labour some palliatives. Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, at a negotiation meeting with labour on Sunday in Abuja said the palliatives would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":262330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[8017,4448],"class_list":["post-263274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-femi-gbajabiamila","tag-nlc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=263274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/262330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=263274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=263274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=263274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}