Federal Government of Nigeria has said it increased the price of petrol to raise money to run the system, since the country was broke.
Information Minister, Mr. Lai Mohammed, stated these while briefing
newsmen at the end of the Federal Executive Council meeting, chaired by
President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday.
Also at the briefing were Attorney General of the Federation and
Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; Minister of Power, Works and
Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, and Labour Minister, Dr. Chris Ngige.
Mr. Lai Mohammed said: “The current problem is not really about
subsidy removal. It is about the fact that Nigeria is broke. Pure and
simple.
“It is like when somebody who has been earning N100,000 a month is
faced with a situation where his employer says, henceforth you will be
earning N10,000 a month. He would need to make some very painful
decisions and some very painful adjustments. That is the situation with
Nigeria today.”
However, Dr. Ngige denied allegations that government was
encouraging labour factionalisation by negotiating with both Ayuba Wabba
and Joe Ajaero factions at separate meetings to forestall the strike.
Ngige said the door is still open for talks with the Federal
Government, noting that “we are ready to discuss with anybody, even
civil society groups. As a government, we will not encourage
factionalisation.”
Similarly, Malami faulted the criticisms arising from the Federal
Government’s legal approach for injunction against the industrial
action, saying it was necessary, especially as NLC did not give the
government the constitutional 15 days notice.
On the waiver granted Dangote Group for the construction of a section
of Lokoja-Obajana-Kabba-Ilorin Road, specifically the section between
Obajana-Kabba Road, Mr. Fashola said the road was important for the
infrastructure development of the country.
He said: “Companies are ordinarily supposed to pay income tax. There
are existing policies in our laws which enable government to consider
and give tax incentives.
“Council considered and approved the proposal for Dangote
Construction Company to build that section of the road because the
tonnage of cement being produced from the factory has increased and the
traffic in that area has increased; there has been unfortunate accidents
also.”
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