TUC asks FG to begin payment of N35k provisional wage award to workers

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has asked the federal government to “immediately” pay all federal civil servants their N35,000 provisional wage award. 

On October 1, President Bola Tinubu approved N35,000 as the provisional wage increment for all treasury-paid workers for six months as part of an agreement reached with the labour unions to avoid a nationwide strike due to the removal of the petrol subsidy.

However, speaking with journalists after an emergency congress held in Abuja on Tuesday, Festus Osifo, the president of TUC, said since the president’s approval, workers have only been paid once, which was in September.

“On the issue of the wage award, it is on record that the payment has been made just once for September, but as it is now, our members in the federal civil service have not been paid the N35,000 wage award since October,” he said.

“We wish to call on the government to fastrack all the payments now. We learnt that they’re putting some things in place to ensure the payment, but people are not ready to listen to excuses.

“We demand that they immediately pay this N35,000 wage award to the bank accounts of the federal civil servants without excuses.

Osifo also warned all the 36 state governors and the minister of the federal capital territory (FCT), to “tighten their belt in assuaging the plight of workers” occasioned by the petrol subsidy removal to avoid a fresh crisis in the country.

“We want the government to tighten their belts, governments at all levels – the federal government, the state and local governments because a situation where they are asking Nigerians to keep tightening their belts and they (government officials) are living in affluence is unacceptable.”