NLC kicks against FGN’s N5 billion palliative to each state

NLC kicks against FGN’s N5 billion palliative to each state

Story from Christine TOBECHUKWU

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has faulted Federal Government’s N5 billion palliative to states, saying it cannot solve the problem of poverty in Nigeria.

Neptune Prime reports that the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) recently announced plans to release N5 billion as palliative to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal which has brought about unprecedented increase in transportation fare and foodstuff across the country.

READ ALSO: FG implements N5bn palliative for each State to mitigate petrol subsidy removal

Reacting to the initiative, NLC president, Joe Ajero, noted that the N5bn palliative package per state won’t amount to N1,500 per person when shared among over 133 million Nigerians who are multi-dimensionally poor, according to a statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Ajero, who made this known on Friday in an interview on the Politics Today show on Channels Television, argued that there was no way N185bn would amount to something impactful, when shared among 133 million poor Nigerians.

The Labour Union leader maintained that even if the funds were converted to the value of six trailers of rice, it wouldn’t amount to a cup of rice per individual when shared.

He added that from the time of the first increment of pump price for petroleum to the last one, more Nigerians had gone beyond the borderline and had slid into a very high level of poverty.

“Let us assume that it is a palliative and not a loan, you will agree that it is difficult to feel the impact of such an amount at a time like this when the Bureau of Statistics has come up to say that over 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor.

“You start to wonder about the impact of N185bn to 133 million people by their admittance, who are multi-dimensionally poor.

“In fact from the first increase in pump price of petrol and the last one, a lot of people moved from the borderline to a very high level of poverty.

If you calculate and do an arithmetic on that, you will discover that it won’t amount to N1500 per person and you ask if that’s the impact that we want to achieve,” he said.