From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has extended its planned industrial action over Naira and fuel scarcity by two weeks.
Speaking at a press conference in conjunction with Trade Union Congress (TUC), in Abuja, yesterdays, NLC president, Joe Ajaero said they decided to postpone the strike in order to monitor CBN’s level of compliance with their demand.
He said: “A day or two after we briefed you here, the CBN deputy governors came and we had a fruitful meeting with them. And we gave them proposals on how best to solve the problem that the CBN caused. I think immediately after that they sprang into action. And they have done considerably, averagely well. Yesterday, again, we had a conciliatory meeting at the Ministry of Labour with the CBN, and there we agreed that at the end of our NEC meeting today, we were going to make pronouncements on the situation. With reports coming from all the states of the federation, and local governments on the level of compliance of banks, we are happy to tell you that, yes, there is compliance by CBN.”
Ajaero said the NLC, after its NEC meeting, decided to pause and monitor compliance by banks for the next two weeks to see whether what the banks were doing was sustainable.
He said committees have been set up at national level and in all the states to coordinate and report back on the level of compliance.
The labour leader also charged the CBN to play its regulatory role of ensuring that the commercial banks comply with its directives.
On the fuel crisis and hike in electricity tariff, he said: “Those are things that if you have been in this country for over 10 years, those are actions in progress. The issue of fuel and electricity tariff are actions in progress. Almost every week they increase tariff. State by state, they are selling PMS at different prices. This is the action on this issue of CBN policy. It is an action that is even affecting every other action. If you move to some filling stations now, queues have started reducing because people now have cash.”
Ajaero said cash crunch was partly responsible for the long queues at filling stations and that with banks releasing cash to citizens, the fuel crisis would ease.