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 agreements made the organised labour suspend its proposed nationwide strike for 30 days, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Government.

But the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, had added a caveat that the unions would revisit the agreement if the Federal Government failed to fulfil their demands.

A civil servant, who identified himself as Opeyemi, said the economic situation was becoming unbearable because most of the prices of food in the market had increased.

He claimed the amount he spent weekly on transport fares to the office had tripled.

He noted that though the Lagos State Government had promised some palliatives, he was not sure if other workers in other states were receiving that also.

PUNCH