TUC cautions against merging NCAA, NAMA, NIMET
Confab: NULGE rejects administrative status for LGs
Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has rejected the recommendations by the committee on Political Restructuring and Forms of Government for Local Government Areas to be turned into administrative units rather than a federal unit.
Speaking to journalists in Abuja, President of Yobe State chapter of NULGE Comrade Musa El-Badawy, who insisted that the local government should continue to remain a federating unit as being presently recognized by the 1999 constitution, pointed out that turning it into an administrative unit will subject the system to the excruciating control of the state assemblies
El-Badawy urged the committee not to temper with the views of Nigerians who are overwhelmingly in support of local government autonomy at a recent public session held by the National Assembly in all the federal constituencies in the country.
“The union knows that the issue of local government is an almost settled matter through various past efforts. The National Conference can only build on this and adopt it for a grand norm in Nigeria and not to sabotage or put the country in a reverse gear through its positions,” he said. Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) has charged the Governor of Lagos State Babatunde Fashola to halt his campaign against the scrapping of the national minimum wage.
ASCN President Comrade Bobboi Kaigama expressed dismay that Fashola, who parades himself as a progressive, has continued to wage war against the N18,000 national minimum wage approved by the Federal Government in 2011. “Why is Governor Fashola so pained that workers are being paid a paltry sum of N18, 000 monthly as minimum wage whereas some political office holders including a good number of governors spend far more than that to feed one animal pet in a day. Is he saying that their pets are more valuable to the society than Nigerian workers?
“If the Lagos State Chief Executive is a true progressive, he should set example The Trade Union Congress (TUC) of Nigeria has cautioned the Federal Government against moves to merge the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET).
The TUC in a communiqué it released in Abuja Saturday, after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting described the proposed merger as “inappropriate, ill-timed and at variance with Nigeria’s obligation as a signatory to Chicago Convention 1944.”
The congress said that “in this age of specialisation, it makes no progressive sense to merge such regulatory agency as (NCAA) with service providers (NAMA and NIMET) as doing so will distract the NCAA from concentrating on its core statutory mandate of over sighting the safety and security of by paying N50, 000 monthly minimum wage or more to civil servants in the state so that other state governors can emulate him,” the Union emphasized.
Kaigama recalled that in September last year at the opening of the Southwest Zonal office of the National Pension Commission in Lagos, Fashola stated that the National Minimum Wage should be scrapped, a call he repeated last Monday in his office while receiving members of the Senior Executive Course 36 of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos, Plateau State.
According to Kaigama, the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 131 of 1970 of which Nigeria is a signatory, enjoins countries of the world to adopt a minimum wage to protect workers from exploitative employers. He advised the governor to concentrate on his job as governor and stop offending the sensibilities of Nigerian workers who have been so marginalized that they can no longer take care of their families. civil aviation.
It urged President Goodluck Jonathan to, “in the interest of professionalism and safety of civil aviation, direct the reversal of the merger, which creates a situation of conflict of interest and paints Nigeria in bad light before the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).”
TUC also opposes the merger of health regulatory bodies of different professions such as Medical Rehabilitation Board of Nigeria, Dental Therapists, Optometrists and Opticians and Dental Technicians, stressing that it will lead to conflict among the different professionals.
The communiqué, jointly signed by TUC President Bobboi Bala Kaigama and Secretary General Musa Lawal called for the immediate passing of the Petroleum Industry Bill, dialogue with oil workers’ unions and respect for the right of workers to unionise.