The federal government and the organised Labour have agreed to sort out issues of implementation of the resolutions reached on fuel subsidy removal interventions within the next eight weeks.
It would be recalled that both sides, including the federal government on one hand and the organised Labour, being the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) on the other hand, adjourned their meeting two weeks ago after jointly drawing up a seven-point resolution and three agreemente to be perfected for the welfare of workers and all Nigerians to cushion the effects of fuel subsidy removal.
President Bola Tinubu, in his inaugural address on May 29, had re-echoed government's decision to remove fuel subsidy, sparking panic among the Nigerian populace, a development that prompted the organised Labour's threat to go on strike, alleging that the government did not put in place the measures to cushion the effect of the subsidy removal.
To avert the strike, the federal government quickly convened a meeting with Labour leaders where demands that will serve as palliatives were made and the two parties agreed to meet again on on Monday, June 19.
However, at the resumed meeting on Monday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the two parties, among other things, set up a Presidential Steering Committee to serve as a clearing house in coordinating the technical sub-committees on different items raised.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, the President of the TUC, Festus Osifo, flanked by his NLC counterpart, Joe Ajaero, said that the parties will reconvene Monday next week to review the framework marshalled out.
He said, "We have concluded our meeting, if you remember very well the last time that we were here that Labour, TUC, NLC met with government about two weeks ago, we agreed that we are going to reconvene today, that is the 19th of June, we just reconvened, we had a meeting although brief.
"The purpose of the meeting today is actually to put together the framework, what we submitted as our demand, how will they be delivered and so we are looking at those framework, government came with what they think will work, we also made some input. From this night, we are going to continue the work in order to have that framework together.
"We agreed that anything we are putting together, we are going to conclude everything in eight weeks. Everything must be rolled out within that time, not something that we are going to leave endlessly. They have submitted the framework to us, we have looked at it, we have made input to it this night, we will continuously work on it in order for us to come up with the deliverables.
"If you look at the communique that was signed in our last meeting, there are some action items in the communique. So it's actually how will these action items will be delivered. For example, we need to have a Presidential Steering Committee that will have to oversee everything.
"We also need to have Technical sub-committees because if we talk about the issue of CNG, we need experts, the issue of CNG, you need those people that are willing to invest, the issue of CNG, you need the national oil company, the NNPCL to come up what they need to do and the time within which they are going to deliver.
"There are some technicalities that are required beyond this meeting, so those technical committees will be subsumed into Presidential committees but all these we must conclude everything maximum in eight weeks. So those technical committees, some will submit their reports in one week, when they submit in one week, we implement, when they submit in two weeks we will implement but the last should not exceed eight weeks .
"The terms of reference of these committees are going to be agreed on between today and tomorrow. We are looking at five broad technical committees that will be subsumed into Presidential Steering Committee. There must be timelines in these terms of reference but maximum should not exceed eight weeks. By next week Monday, we will be here again, same time."
Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties, Communication and Strategies, Dele Alake, said that the meeting considered the short term, medium term and long term measures in resolving the issue with government.
He said, "We reconvened today, both parties went through this list and we tipped off the viable ones, those things are broken into three categories. The immediate, those that can be of low hanging fruit in the short term, the medium term and the long term.
"So those list of demands in terms of implementation and execution fall into those three broad categories of short, medium and long term categories. So that's what we decided today and other meetings will still be held in order to cross the ts and dot the is.
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"One group has been constituted at today's meeting, there is a steering committee that will be like a clearing house, there are other groups set up comprising both parties, government and labour members and these groups will work together very harmoniously and efficiently to arrive at the final resolution of all these demands and what we call interventions."
Present at the meeting were the delegation of the NLC, led by its President, Joe Ajaero, the delegation of the TUC led by its President, Festus Osifo, the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, Special Adviser to the President on Revenue, Zachaeus Adedeji, the Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Verheijen, and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Kachallom Daju.
Others were the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited NNPCL, Mele Kyari, the Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC, Gbenga Komolafe, the CEO of Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, Farouk Ahmed, among others.
