A lawmaker of the House of Representatives, George Ozodinobi, has decried the growing high cost of living in Nigeria, saying N70000 is not ideal for any civil servant.
The lawmaker, who represents Njikoka and Ochadunokofia federal constituency of Anambra State lamented while speaking on the floor of the plenary on Wednesday, October 16, 2024.
Ozodinobi said the increase in fuel pump price has made life unbearable for Nigerians in the past week.
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He said; “I want to draw the attention of all of us that in this recent past, the Federal Government gave a minimum wage of N70,000 per month and just a week or two ago, there’s an increase of fuel price and I am telling you from personal experience.”
Citing instances with his domestic staff, Ozodinobi added, “My driver, I approved his transport of N3,000 a day and he has now come up with a bill of N6,000 a day just to come to work.
“All these things are affecting the entire stress of our people. What does this dovetail to?
“We cannot transport food from our constituency or our constituencies cannot transport their produce from the farm to the market with a much lesser cost,” the lawmaker said.
He also noted that the newly approved minimum wage cannot carry any civil servant and his/her family past three days considering the rate at which basic needs and food items are increasing in price.
He said, “The increases of food in this country… somebody who is earning N70,000 a month, his N70,000 cannot last him for three days. In this same government with the same policy.”
Meanwhile, the Federal Government and Organised Labour, have reportedly agreed on modalities to crash transport fares and prices of essential commodities, especially foodstuffs.
The agreement was made after a meeting held in Abuja on Wednesday to address the rising cost of living.
The meeting held closed-door was led by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume.
Other members at the meeting included the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu; Minister of Finance, Wale Edun; Minister of Budget and National Planning, Abubakar Bagudu; Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Nkeiruka Onyejiocha and Minister of State for Petroleum, Heineken Lokpobiri, among others.
Addressing newsmen at the end of the meeting, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris said the Federal Government will continue to engage with organized labour and not wait until there was tension on any issue before doing so.
Fielding questions on whether the meeting with the labour had anything to do with minimum wage, the minister said: “These are just general discussions. Government is always desirous of engaging with Labour, this is one of such engagements.
‘’We will continue to interact with them. We won’t wait until there is tension about anything before we engage Labour.
“This is a renewed commitment on behalf of government to continue to engage Labour on a number of issues. These engagements have been very fruitful and we will continue to engage with them.”
On what was discussed at the meeting, Idris said: “A lot of things were discussed. But like I said, this is work in progress, this is something that isn’t a one-off thing, but we have not reached anything that we think we can tell Nigerians now, but what is more important is that, there is going to be continuous engagement between us and labour for the good of the country.”
Asked if the meeting had to do with the recent hike in fuel price, he said: “This is our continuous engagement with labour for the good of the country. You know that labour is an important component of this country, all of them are our brothers and sisters.
‘’Government is there for everyone, including labour, so we will continue to engage labour for the good of the country.”
