Textile workers seek timelines for Tinubu’s agenda
Oshiomhole advises against ainst agitations for salary increments Cross River to sanitise payroll, may affect 80% of workforce
THE Nigerian Textile Garment and Tailoring Employers’ Association ( NTGTEA) has demanded a breakdown and timelines for the actualisation of President Bola Tinubu’s eight- point agenda.
The association’s President, John Adaji, who asked for the breakdown at the opening session of the 13th National Delegates’ Conference of NTGTEA, in Abuja, yesterday, said that the eight- point renewed hope agenda is largely in prose format, lacking details on deliverables.
He said: “How many decent jobs are to be created within the context of the Renewed Hope Agenda?
CROSS River State government has expressed its resolve to sanitise the payroll of the state’s workforce, which is currently blighted by several infractions.
The Head of Service ( HOS) of the state, Dr Innocent Eteng, conveyed the government’s position during a press briefing with journalists in Calabar, yesterday.
The state payroll has, in recent weeks, become a subject of public discourse, where the state’s workforce has skyrocketed from a little above 18,000, at the end of former Governor Liyel
How many Nigerians will be lifted out of poverty? How many new investments in manufacturing are we looking at? How many closed factories, including labourintensive textile industries, are to be resuscitated? These are some of the questions on the minds of many Nigerians.”
Adaji insisted that though the textile industry is largely comatose, it is still the largest private employer of labour in Nigeria after the government.
He noted that the world of work is changing like never before and that this affects all sectors of the global economy.
While acknowledging the
Imoke’s administration in 2015, to a staggering 56,358 as of May 29, 2023, leaving an over- bloated wage bill for the Governor Bassey Otu- led administration to deal with.
A further breakdown of the 56,358 workforce by Eteng revealed that the State Universal Basic Education Board ( SUBEB) has 14,328 staff, Primary Health Care Development Agency, 2,812, State Civil Service, 22,526, pensioners, 19,701, Local Government Service, 4,131 and Traditional Rulers Council, 2,860.
The HOS stated that Otu has kept his promise of prompt contributions of successive governments to the revitalisation of the textile industry, he stressed that there exists a huge gap between policy pronouncement and policy implementation.
While the union applauded Tinubu’s ambitious strategic vision for Nigeria’s development, Adaji added that there is a need for a clear roadmap on how the administration intends to realise this vision in the next four years.
He lamented that over the years, the capacity of the industry has diminished drastically, coupled with large- scale job losses, which has created a pool of unemployed Nigerians with correpayment of salaries, and has done so up- to- date, except for a few civil servants whose names could not be reconciled on the nominal roll and payroll. He, however, notified Cross Riverians that there is an ongoing strategic cleanup of the state payroll, driven by his office and the Accountant General, to rid the system of ambiguities.
EANWHILE, following this development, Eteng has warned that 80 per cent of the state’s workforce may not be paid March 2024 salaries.
He said that this is sequel to flagrant disregard of the gov
Msponding high poverty levels and an increase in crime rates.
In the meantime, a former General Secretary of the union, Adams Oshiomhole, has urged labour unions to de- emphasise agitations for salary increments but focus on the value the naira can purchase.
While expressing how regular payment of salaries has been when the current minimum wage of N30,000 was agreed upon with employers, Oshiomhole, who is now a Senator, argued that many state governments are still unable to pay the wage that is lower than $ 30 for the job done for 30 days. ernment’s directives by permanent secretaries and directors of administration of Ministries, Departments and Agencies ( MDAS) to submit nominal rolls of their MDAS to his office and the office of the Accountant General.
The Head of Service noted that out of the 31 MDAS in the state, only eight have so far submitted their payroll for reconciliation and clearance for payment of March salaries, adding that workers in the MDAS that have refused to comply with the directive would not be paid March salaries.