FG slashes wage by N100bn, Labour kicks
Labour unions, on Wednesday, lambasted the Federal Government for slashing the supplementary budgetary allocation for wage awards to federal civil servants by N100bn, warning that this was not the agreement they had with the government.
Data obtained from the newly Revised 2023 Supplementary Budget, indicated that the government swapped the controversial N5bn presidential yacht votes for Navy barges, increased the budget for defence from N476.54bn to N546.21bn and earmarked N20bn as capital supplementation for the National Intelligence Agency.
The PUNCH reports that the recently approved N2.1tn 2023 Supplementary Budget was marred with controversy following the discovery of seemingly extravagant items, forcing an amendment by the National Assembly.
In the proposed document, the four-month wage award was to cost the Federal Government around N210bn. However, the approved and newly revised document showed that it would now cost the Federal Government about N110bn.
Also in the revised budget, the Ministry of Defence budget rose from N476.54bn to N546.21bn, indicating an additional allocation of N69.67bn.
Under the ministry, the Nigerian Navy, which was earlier caught up in the controversial N5.095bn for the purchase of a presidential yacht, got an additional N25bn to its total allocation.
Its total allocation rose from N62.8bn in the proposed supplementary budget to N87.8bn in the approved document.
Remarking on the development, the Assistant General Secretary, Nigeria Labour Congress, Chris Onyeka, said the agreement was for the government to raise the wages of federal civil servants and not to reduce them.
Also speaking, the Head of Information, NLC, Benson Upah, said, “We were not informed before this was done. However, this behaviour is not inconsistent with the psychology of this government. It’s sad!”
The Trade Union Congress warned the Federal Government against playing games with the wage award for Nigerian workers.
Efforts to get the Presidency to speak on why the award was reduced were unsuccessful, as officials contacted at the villa could not provide any explanation at the time of filing this report.
