NOSA EGHAGHA
ABUJA, Nigeria – As parts of measure to address the lingering industrial crisis in the nation and restore peace and harmony in the organised labour, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) yesterday announced a 30-day implementation plan for the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Federal Government and the Organised Labour.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Lalong, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Lalong said a Memorandum was presented to the council on the implementation of the agreement with labour.
“We presented a memo from the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment and the memo was basically on the agreement between government and the labour. You are already aware that 15 items are parts of the agreement.
“But we went beyond mere agreement, we told them that something different this time is happening because one, part of the agreement is to file it in the court of law which we have set the process already.
“And the other one was the presidential approval. There cannot be any presidential approval more than the Federal Executive Council. So we presented them to the Federal Executive Council. We analysed each and every aspect of the agreement and to show the genuineness and also provide for harmonious and good industrial relationship and that was why it was presented and it was approved for implementation.
“It was agreed that within 30 days , there must be evidence of implementation and that was the basis of presenting to the Federal Executive Council the memo and the Federal Executive Council also approved it and within this 30 days, we will go on with the implementation of the agreement between labour and government.” He said.
In his response to the question about the item six of the MoU which was the government alleged interference in the activities of the democratically elected leadership of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and the mandate to him (Lalong) to resolve the crisis in the union on or before October 13, the Minister said he had series of meetings with the factional leaderships of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW).
Lalong who briefed the journalists alongside the Minister of State for Labour, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, said that the FEC also took a decision against any external interference in unions activities by external bodies.
“Item six in the MoU is about interference specifically with issues that were about road transport workers. Immediately the next day, we embarked on meetings between the two organisations.
“As of today, they have already reached out and have concluded that of Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, RTEAN, today they are making a report to the ministry about their agreement because they went into agreement too and we are also going to get back to their parent association.
“The next one is the NURTW. Last week we were with them. Of course if some of you were there, you knew why we postponed it, I reminded them that we are keeping to the date of the agreement but they said they cannot strictly keep to the date because it is very important to them that we realised the aim. So we shifted the meeting till tomorrow. Today, we are going to get the report, by tomorrow we will fix a meeting.
“The reason why we presented these items to the Federal Executive Council is for them to note and approve that after these things we will not want to be tolerating interference into union activities.
“But those that are pending are within the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment. Our own is to dispense with conflicts and we are going to continue to do that and these two items we have mentioned, were really the particular things they hammered on when we met. By God’s grace in the next few days, those ones are going to be sorted out.” He said.
