 NLCT UC s sign a 15-point agreement with the federal government. I am Bola Hobba and this is plus politics. The organized labour unions have signed a 15-point memorandum of understanding with the federal government. This agreement was signed by the representatives of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLCT, Trade Union Congress, TUC and the federal government as a last-minute effort to avert the planned nationwide strike yesterday. Some of the agreements reached are the federal government grants a wage award of 35,000 naira only to all federal government workers beginning from the month of September pending when a new national minimum wage is expected to have been signed into law. The federal government commits to pay 25,000 per month for three months starting from October 2023 to 15 million households including vulnerable pensioners. The federal government also suspends collection of value-added tax VAT on diesel for six months beginning from October 2023. 12 other agreements were reached however the organized private sector OPS which is a relatively higher employer of labour than the federal government was left out of the negotiations and the final agreement that will inevitably burden it with cost implications. Joining me to discuss this is to start with Comrade Peter S. Le, former President, Trade Union Congress, TUC and Pengasin. It's a pleasure having you on Comrade. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Comrade, how can one start by not asking you why would labour so distrust government these days that labour after reaching an agreement with the federal government made it mandatory that the agreement must be notorized, that it must be taken to a court of competent jurisdiction and be registered in the books of the court. That distrust is seemingly profound. How would you want to respond to that? Well, you know there's a parable in my place that when a child is beaten by the snake he or she gets scared of the lizard. So whether to give this current administration the benefit of it out because why I use that analogy is because this current administration they are just about four months old. So we've not gotten to the point whereby they have free-flop on any agreement yet. But they both organised the board to be on the safe side because so many things have happened in the past that government have not hidden. So this is the way they think they can get out of it and they just have to do it. So whichever means that you know we work for you, you just have to do it. And it speaks volume of the lack of trust as you have alluded to and it's painful and I think government can take a cue from that so that such a thing doesn't happen. And I also tell you now that if government does not comply with that agreement, government will in one hand be in contempt of our legal system and on the other hand labour will have every right to shut down the country in whatever way they want it. I am sitting there thinking is it the history of the relationship of labour with the federal government. Is it that we just somewhat at this juncture have a very, very, I really want to be very polite in my use of language but it is seemingly more aggressive, more abrasive labour leader number one because Agero comes with a form of history in the labour movement. At some point it was even an outcast in the mainstream labour movement because he had always portrayed himself to be so tough and so hard. So is it because we are in the Agero Heller now that this kind of push of distrust and formalisation of agreement at the court is coming to play? I don't think so, I don't think so. I think what is playing out is on both sides, it's on both sides actually. And what I think is playing out here is, I'll give an example of myself, when I was Ben Gasin president I was dealing with branches and majority of our branches are in the organised private sector, they are majorly OPS, OPS member position with an IOC, it will be, it will go on for six months. But once we signed an agreement, it sticks. And not until when I became president of TUC, whereby I have to start negotiating with federal government, state government, that I started seeing how agreements are not respected. We can, the organised private sector, we can have a disagreement, we can go on for a year, but once an agreement is reached, it's sacrosanct, they won't break it. But when it comes to the federal government? My distinguished comrade, please let me introduce your colleague on this. Dr Mouda Yusuf is the director, CEO centre for the promotional private enterprise, was once the director general of the legal chamber of commerce and in view of the kind of scenario that has just played out with the agreement that Labour reached with the federal government, one wonders, Labour has reached this agreement with the federal government but the organised private sector is relatively a higher employer than the federal government itself and they were left out of the negotiations and the agreement. Dr Yusuf, if I may just use this to usher you in, what would be your take of an agreement where the organised private sector's aid was shaved in its absence? Well, I would be surprised if the private sector was not involved in this because I know that NECA has consistently been part of the discussions around these strikes and the negotiation of wages. I'm not privy to the last meeting whether NECA was there or not. But I will say that, let me say that the private sector is already ahead of many of these negotiations and outcomes that were just recently released. You mean the organised private sector? Yes, the organised private sector particularly the large enterprises, the large corporates and so on. I'm not talking now about the SMEs because when we talk about private sector, it's not just the organised private sector, it's not just the big companies who populate the OPS. I'm also talking about the SMEs. So the OPS components of the organised private sector have taken a whole lot of steps ahead of what has been even agreed to now. Many of them have increased their transport allowances for their workers. Many of them have introduced a lot of remote working options. Many of them have provided buses for their staff. And many of them have reviewed the salaries of their workers as well. Significantly even much more than the issues of just this way the world or 25% or so. In some cases, transport allowances have increased by more than 100%. So the private sector had done quite a lot already. But that is not to diminish the importance of inclusiveness or inclusion in this negotiation process. And I believe that NECA had normally engaged on behalf of the private sector, have been substantially part of the negotiations with Labour. But I cannot say this specifically with respect to this latest agreement that was reached. With respect to this latest agreement, NECA's DG was quite vehement when it was making the point, I think yesterday on the platform, that they were not literally part of it. However, they are going to inevitably bear, but that's not the issue now. Dr Yusuf, you have hinted your reputation as a respected macroeconomist and looking at the 15-point agreement. What would be your summary of the likely consequential effects on the economy? Well, the effects will be fairly okay, but let me put it this way. Certainly there has been a lot of challenges as a result of the reforms that has taken place. And the position of Labour, one can also understand. Not just for the workers, but for the average Nigerian. Because the hardship has been quite enormous. And the government has also not responded as fast as we had also expected. So there is a point to be made about accelerating the process of the engagement and accelerating the implementation of whatever government has agreed. So from the point of view of the industrial relations environment, I think some progress is being made to the extent that the strike has been put on hold for the next one month. And to the extent that some progress has been made in the negotiations. We cannot be talking about the stillmated engagement as of now. And this agreement is also far-reaching, but I think the scope can be much wider. For instance, I expect a lot more pronouncement around issues of the use of fiscal policy. They talk about bosses and CNG. I like to see a situation where we are not just talking about sector to also import more bosses. It will create more incentives for the private sector to import and make available the CNG accessories and so on and so forth. Okay. Convey the SLE. Access fees for the SLE. And then the progress that you can do more. Dr. Yusuf, your line is a bit on and off. Let me use this opportunity to go to Convey the SLE. Convey the SLE. Labour seems, if one were to just oppose this agreement with previous interactions of Labour with the federal government, Labour seems to have used a joker in this instance. Labour seems to have gotten much more of what an average historical observer of the Labour government and negotiations would have thought Labour would have gotten in this kind of instance was your take. What could have led to this level of amenability by the federal government to the demands of Labour? Even increasing from the 25,000 naira that the president had pronounced in his independence day speech to 35,000, 10,000 naira above what the president had earlier pronounced. What's your response to that? Convey the SLE. I think my response to that is quite clear. What Labour has done is just taking advantage of the lose of a glory. The government was not prepared. You are carrying out reforms. You are carrying out structural reforms that is so deep that you know that it's going to create a lot of hardship for the people. And at the end, you didn't put any structure in place. You didn't put any measures in place. So it gives Labour a room to now go into the space and start telling you, oh, this is what we want. And that's why when the president made his speech, the president used the word provisional. And the word provisional means that the president knows that that is not sacrosan. Because the Trapartheid need to meet. And by the Trapartheid, I mean the government, the employers, which government and employers, the employers, which is the OPS, and then the workers, which is represented by the Labour unions. So once this Trapartheid have a meeting, that is whatever is agreed by this Trapartheid now becomes what we totally binding. So what are the government says they are increasing minimum wage from 60,000 to 100,000. We know that won't work if Labour is going to ask for more. And organized private sector also need to be part of it. I listen to the NECA Digis response. But I also know that he knows that it will be called the next move because there's going to be a committee on the wage review that will be set up. And NECA will be represented. I think that is the rule. These are Instagram rules. You can't come to make such a change without the organized private sector being part of it. And I think what Labour is also doing is going through it systematically. I listen to some opinion for all or some people talking about how Labour is being weakened, they threaten a strike, they don't go on strike. And the first thing I'm telling them, Labour 1 is a pressure group. Yes, they have a right to strike, they have a right to protest. But you also need to ask yourself what was the end result. The end result is you want better colleges for your members. You want the economic environment to also be good for employers. You know we have this thing that we don't know in Labour movement is that the employers and the employees, our relationship is symbolic. We need it. So how do you make sure that everybody is at safe is to ensure that you go ahead, you threaten the strike. And the strike are only happening as 21 days. The last time they gave 21 days. And when 21 days were inspiring, they gave, now they give you 30 days, which of course continually give you good. Let me quickly chip this in for your attention, committee seller. At some point it was like there was a fracture of a sort between the two centres of Labour, NLC and TUC. At some point it seemed like the organisation where you have much emotional and historical link with the TUC was sounding quite elitist for some members of the public. And you're taking a laugh at it. Okay, that's good enough. And that the NLC was much more allotish. How did you veterans and state persons in the trade union movement, how did you get the two sites to reconcile and eventually do the joint pronouncement when they wanted to, when they gave the final notice of the strike? How did you help us of the movement reconcile the two sites or centres? Yes, initially when it all started, I had several invitations from the media to talk about the division that is going on. And I simply refused having any media interview because I know that is normal. It's normal because TUC, if I'm to describe it, TUC is more of white colour and NLC has a blend of white and blue colour. So now we always have a divergent view of how to address a national strike. The first thing is that TUC would start their thinking from the position of what damage is it going to do to the economy and how do we mitigate that damage. And then both sides will now see that and compare rules and then they will not come to an agreement. But what you have in the labour movement which I'm always very happy about is that we have what I call positive tension. By positive tension I mean that we are going to discuss it, we will see that. Similarly, it also happened when I was president and Abdu'wahid Umar was president of Nigeria Labour Congress. But we always find a way to walk around our differences because our goal is always that why are we in the union. The reason why we are in the union is to ensure the protect and defend the welfare of our members. So at the end of the day everybody is going to key into that goal and then stay put. And once they are able to agree on those fine prints, then it's very easy to see them and go ahead and do a joint press conference. I wasn't surprised and I was aware of all the going on behind the scenes. And you have refused to tell us what the elders of the movement did. The elders of the movement did, like you said. A VAT removed for a defined period of time on NGO. Most companies these days, small, medium enterprises, especially enterprises using heavy duty engines to generate power are inevitably bound to buy diesel. So I'm sitting there thinking what could that translate to an average manufacturer or an average SME or SMEA who has to run generators to produce goods and services. Yes, that is something that we appreciate is commendable. But before I respond specifically to that, let me say that in all this conversation around weight review and all of that, the SMEs have not been taken into account because for many SMEs, even the owner of the businesses, the owners of the businesses are struggling to remain afloat. Many of them are running at a loss as we speak. Many of them are struggling to pay even their workers, even the old salaries that they were taking. So as we respond to this situation, we should come up with something that is more systemic because if we look at people who are workers or who are wage earners, what percentage of them belong to either TUC or NLC? I'm not sure they are up to 10 percent. So the larger percentage are still employees of the small businesses. So as we respond to these challenges that we are faced with, we must take their interest into account. By deploying things that will make it easy for them. Not only to continue to be in business, but to be able to pay their workers even the content wages that they are paying them. Because the businesses of many of them are at risk as we speak. Many of them are suspended operations. Many of us who have been in this trade for a while have always known that the Nigerian Minimum Wage Act is actually an elitist statute. An elitist because many of the companies in the private sector fall out of the specifications of the Minimum Wage Act. You will agree with me that many businesses in the agricultural sector are left out. Because maybe the generals who first promulgated what later metamorphosed into the Minimum Wage Act, the decree, maybe they knew they were going to retire into agriculture, so the left agricultural enterprise is out. Apart from that, even in manufacturing, you would have to have say more than 50 employees. I am not sure where I am now, but there is a segment or a window that if you really look at that window, majority of the SMEs in Nigeria today literally swimming in that window. So the Minimum Wage itself is not meant for the majority of Nigerian workers. How would you respond to that? Yeah, that is a very valid point. That is a valid point because just as I said, the SMEs, the informal economy and all of that account for over 80% or more of the total workforce in this environment. So whatever policies that have been deployed needs to take that into account. Because they also have a responsibility to review the wages of their workers. They have a responsibility to retain employment. They have a duty to create jobs and they have a duty in a way to stabilize the social environment because of their share numbers. So I think this is important so that we can be coming again from a more systemic perspective to this issue. And that is why the quality of review. Let me come back to you with some of the programs as enunciated by this administration that they believe would incentivize SMEs. But let me use this opportunity to quickly let Comrade Essela. Comrade Essela, one tends to want to be a bit somewhat sober when in an environment like Nigeria, in a micro-economy that is arredued with hyperinflation, you get labour only wanting to ask for pecuniary or monetary relief. And one naturally feels that this monetary relief would inevitably galvanize the inflationary trend but enough as it is. Is there any way labour leaders like yourself, indeed the old and the new labour leaders, is there any way people can sit down and try to look at other mechanisms and measures that can make labour and government speak to some other incentives apart from monetary incentives that will naturally worsen the condition of inflation? How would you respond to that Comrade Essela? Now if you look at the 50 point, the M-Movie that has been signed, you can see that there are so many areas that labour is addressing this. First labour is talking about CNG. What will CNG do is to ease the cost of transportation. And if you are able to ease the cost of transportation, everybody benefits at the end of the day. And then you also now have labour also going on at the VAT on dessert, be taken out. And with that, that also affect manufacturing. It will also affect the cost of production, which means that they also reduce your cost, your financial athlete. And then the other aspect that you also look at is that for you to grow in the economy, in a very tight economic environment, government spends their way through a very difficult time. That's where we are right now. So if labour don't have, if workers don't have enough money and workers are not spending money because they don't have money to spend, then what you have is that the economy is going to contract. And so once you have that, you are going to have challenges too. So for your economy to grow, your citizens must have money to spend. So if you look at the 50, the M-Movie that has been signed between labour and the federal government, it also encapsulates all of this to make sure that everybody benefits at the end of the day. Dr. Yusuf. Dr. Yusuf, do we still have Dr. Yusuf on? Okay, come with me. Yes. Okay, Dr. Yusuf. Thank you for still being there. I asked your colleague a question, burden on how to manage this hyper-inflationary trend, especially when it comes to monetary awards by our monetary agitations by labour. What would be your response to that? Although it rightly stated that they also got into agreement with the government, on some other measures that are not quite monetary in nature, and that would help reining the galloping inflationary trend. But what would be your response to that? Well, my response would be that the key drivers of inflation has never been the wages that people collect or the increases in wages that has been announced. It may have some very marginal effects, but it's not a fundamental driver of inflation. Now, I'm sure you listened to the new CDN governor when he was interacting with the Senate and he referred to the impact of money supply on inflation and specifically the impact of the waste and made finances which at a point got as high as almost 30 trillion Eira on money supply and the pathway effects on inflation. We still have our guests with us, Dr. Mouda Yusuf and Comrade Essele. Dr. Yusuf, sorry for cutting you short. We had a bit of a technical glitch in the studio. I should let you finish the point you were making before we went on break. Yes, the point I was making was that we need to look at the critical drivers of inflation. Review of wages may have a very marginal effect, but the bigger drivers are those things that are pushing off our money supply, especially the financing of deficit by governments, especially by the Central Bank of Nigeria. Then we have issues of cost-proof inflation like the high energy costs, like the exchange rate deposition. These are bigger factors that are actually driving inflation. So the argument that this review of wages is going to cost inflation I think is a disproportionate kind of argument. The impact cannot be that significant. So that is the point I am making. Labour should be conscious of also how the government is managing the macroeconomic environment. Because the greatest accelerator of poverty in Nigeria today is inflation. That is what has been eroding the wages of workers. And the income of ordinary people. And unfortunately the wages are not moving enough to be able to catch up with inflation. So as if we will get some of these reviews, the inflation is ahead of it. So we should also continue to look at the advocacy dimension of labour engagement on the macroeconomic policies of government. How do we ensure that we don't have further depreciation in the exchange rate, high cost of energy and things like that monetization of deficit. Those things impact on the macroeconomic environment, they impact on inflation and they erode the purchasing power of the citizens. So you will explain the cost of engagement. Let me go to come to the selling now. I have come with from some of the submissions of Dr. Yusuf. It is quite obvious to many, even some of us on this side of the divide that it is about time labour start with the organized private sector and have a common strategy to combat the galloping inflation that is now robbing the value of money in the society. Labour seems to play the combative element or the combative strategy more but the thinking cap strategy, the strategic strategy, the strategy of indeed holding joint session with the private sector with a view to coming to a common position to tell government this will be leave irrespective of whatever may be your policy. This may be helpful. What do you say to that? I think because the organized private sector and labour are not holding a joint press conference the way you see it and you see it doing it. There are a lot of back channel conversations between the organized private sector and labour and you know the organized private sector they also like to work behind the scenes. One of the reasons they like to work behind the scenes is that they also don't want anyway to be found, to be competing or wanting to undermine the government in power so I'll give an example of even the Petroleum Industry Bill which is now Petroleum Industrial Act was also a collaborative effort between the organized private sector and labour especially PENCASI New Bank and there were a series of meetings that were under NMPC idea in the big day so if you also look at the other point how many times do you see labour and organized private sector up in arms they are less than 10% of the time you always have labour versus government you don't have labour versus organized private sector because there are internal mechanisms that are used between labour and the organized private sector and I also let you know that the first quarter of next year the organized private sector, the current digital NECA is also organizing a forum that is between labour and NECA they have a lot of informal meetings but now they are coming out and making it a lot more formal so in this meeting that I have shared to whom first quarter of next year we are also going to have the president of Nigeria industrial court so all the stakeholders in that space are coming together to also review what is happening but I will tell you the relationship between organized private sector and labour has never been this better so but there are still rooms for improvement let me get a bit cheeky here now he does seem maybe for some of us who were in the magist movement in our college days he does seem that a looter wing of labour the theatrical wing of labour the winogogli wing of labour seems to always define labour or get more visible than the strategic, thoughtful wing of labour and so one wonders is that the only way to be relevant in the labour movement I am just asking because you and indeed your successor the incumbent leader of TUC you seem a bit less melodramatic in the looter in their looter sense you portray yourselves to be a bit more thoughtful, strategic thinkers and communicators but most labour leaders they always combative, always looterish if there is any word like that I think it has to do with individual preferences for example the current TUC president just like I during my time as president of Petroleum and Natural Gas Association so he is wearing both caps as president of TUC just like I did when I was also at the helm of affairs then what is our background our background is that you hardly see issues up in the oil and gas engagement we have collected but getting agreement and we have trained some of the best tools around so there is a time for a looter which is winogli there is nothing wrong with that so apply our mental ability intellectual depth that we possess sometimes I have been somewhere and somebody says we don't know that labour leaders have this sound and I say excuse me what do you mean you think we didn't go to school and I was telling somebody earlier when he was making an allusion to the current president of TUC as he is an engineer for God's sake and he works for Petroleum and he is not just an engineer he is a high flyer and he sees me right now so you guys are the Rolls Royce of the labour movement and we have the malware side of it okay let me go through no no no I never said that I never said that I never said that I never said that I take it back I know you won't quite agree to it but those of us who are watchers we know what we see you are laughing you are a mother one cannot but look at the Nigerian economy and feel somewhat perplexed you have been there as the DG of a prominent chamber of commerce the Lagos Chamber of Commerce you are in your incumbent position the chief executive officer of an economic macroeconomic think tank Dr. Mouda how could somebody like you profile suggestions to the government on how to arrest this seeming rudelessness well first let me say that it is not a rudeless trajectory there is a direction in my view and what is happening currently is a decision or the desire or the objective to correct some of the distortions of the past these are essentially corrective reforms I am talking about reforms in the oil and gas and reforms in our foreign exchange market unfortunately these reforms have come with some very serious pains the hashi was much bigger than what many of us expected unfortunately and just as I said the government needed to have responded much faster but these are things that we need to do to stabilize our environment call me the sellers in oil and gas for many years apart from the upstream sector we have not had any serious private investment in the downstream particularly the refineries and for an oil producing country to be operating for decades we have been in oil business for close to six decades or more we don't have functioning private refineries these are some of the policy missteps that are taking place over the years and that is part of what has brought us to this situation Dr. Mouda one can especially in the downstream sector one can only respect we have the downstream sector that is populated by bureaucrats and politicians how do you get results from that so the reforms is to focus the sector within the framework of the petroleum industry act the same thing with the foreign exchange of fortunately we do not have the fundamentals to be able to support the reforms in the foreign exchange market I am talking about the capacity of the CBN to stabilize the market by way of the reserves because the reserves have been significantly encumbered and that has triggered a lot of speculative activities which is leading to this very sharp slide in the Naira for me from a policy perspective I think we are on course although we need some fine tuning as we progress with the current reforms and more importantly the government also needs to come to the realization that the hardship on the ordinary Nigerians are immense and we need to do a lot more to pushing these hardships beyond just giving salaries and things we need to come up with things that have system what are the fundamental measures that somebody like you would expect to be on the table at this juncture and we know that the structural reforms are somewhat inevitable many of us indeed are myself inclusive I will add that for years mouth the fact that the subsidy had to go it's gone now but it's looking like we never quite planned well enough before it was removed what are the suggestions you have just about one minute because we have less than two minutes to go the suggestions I have is that now that we have a policy that has opened up these days for the private sector they come to come with more robust fiscal incentives to encourage more private sector players in that sector whether they are domestic private sector players whether they are private sector foreign investors we have to rule out incentives and publicize it well enough then we have to have a good handle on security in oil producing in the oil producing areas we cannot have the space as important as that looking as if it is completely ungoverned let me quickly go to let me quickly go to Commander Selle to random Commander Selle you are in many respect a leader not only in the organized labour movement anymore you are indeed but John in the statesman now because it's been a while that we have left office and still you see I am embarrassing president and you are out there what would be your suggestions to government at this juncture on how to better engage with labour in about 30 seconds government should not just talk the work government should work the talk if they do that then you will find out that there will be social cohesion and the dialogue between government and labour will go smoothly so it is keeping to your words and keeping to your promises thank you thank you very much my name is Amuda Yusuf director CEO center for the promotion of private enterprise PPE and comrade Selle, former president of TUC and PNGESEN thank you so much for reaching this program tonight thank you this is where we wrap it up and that's it for today I am Bola Oba have a good night