Comrade Festus Osifo is the President of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) and also the National President of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN). In this interview with CHRISTIAN APPOLOS, he speaks on some critical and pressing national issues and proffers possible solutions:

What would you consider as major achievements of the labour movement in 2024?

When we talk about achievements, there are many that are in the public domain. The minimum wage tops the list of major achievements of organised labour in 2024. The new minimum wage was shifted from the sum of 30,000 Naira to the sum of 70,000 Naira. Was 70,000 the figure we desired? The answer is No. However, moving the minimum wage by 133 percent was very commendable. Although the social and economic challenges in the country have eroded the purchasing power of the newly gotten 70,000 minimum wage has been eroded by inflation, devaluation of naira and fuel subsidy removal.

Now, apart from the notable achievements, a lot of affiliates of Trade Union Congress of Nigeria made salient achievements, and not many of them are in the press. What many people don’t know is that for every single time we come in the public and file for an action, there are hundreds of collective bargaining agreements that are being agreed on. There are hundreds of memorandum of understanding that are being agreed on in the boardroom, in the negotiation room.

But they don’t make it to the press or to the public domain.

For example, in PENGASSAN in 2024, we were able to get a lot of branches’ improvement in their total remuneration. In some cases up to 200 percent, some 150 percent, and some 100 percent. In oil and gas, for you to achieve up to 200 percent increase in remuneration, it’s quite major. And we made these achievements without shutting the gates, closing the oil well or carrying out any form of industrial action. So by and large, I could say that 2024 we achieved a lot. Even though not all made it to the press.

What measures would labour take to ensure that employers of labour pays workers the 70,000 minimum wage?

We’ve made a far reaching push in the implementation of the 70,000 minimum wage. The level of compliance today, just within six months after the new minimum wage was signed, it’s much more than at any other time in history. A good number of states have signed agreements for the implementation, and a lot of them have also started implementing it. For states that have not started implementing, conversations are at a very high level. So to a very large extent, we could say that the compliance is growing as the day goes by.

Now that we are in January, we will make it a responsibility to hold all the states to account. We will analyze the situation, and any state that has come short in the implementation, we will find a way to get them to implement, and if worst comes, we will direct our members there on what to do.

Port Harcourt and now Warri refineries are functional. Will this development translate to fuel pump price decrease?

As TUC, we have been advocating since that government should revitalize all our refineries. Also, we have been shouting about the exchange rate. Why prices of goods and services are rather skyrocketing instead of coming down is the exchange rate.

We have flogged this issue over and over again. Because crude is an international product, its price is in USD. For instance, Dangote is buying crude in Naira. But in dollar equivalent, at the international market price. So as long as your exchange rate is weak, the PMs price will continuously be within the range of the exchange rate.

The reason Dangote is reducing price, is because when Dangote refinery started producing PMS, the price of crude in the international market was above $80 per barrel. Dangote locked in a two-month contract with NNPC at about $80 plus per barrel. But today, the price of crude in the international market has since come down to about $72- $73 per barrel. Because the price of crude has reduced in the international market, then the local refineries will definitely reduce their pump price. Dangote is here for business, to make money. If the price of crude rose to about 90 or 100 plus, we would pay more, because in the deregulated environment, that is how it works.

So the exchange rate is the bane of fuel pump price. If the exchange rate today comes down to 1000 Naira, we are going to be paying maybe somewhere around 400, 500 to 600 Naira per liter. These are the controlling factors.

The national budget, it is said about 13 trillion naira would be financed by borrowing. What is your take on this?

The budget was presented at about 49.76 trillion Naira. Government said they project an exchange rate of 1500 naira. When you do the mathematics, it’s going to be around $82 billion. When you compare the 2024 budget, which was around 27.5 trillion naira, at about 700 Naira exchange rate, that’s going to give you $38 billion. What that means is that in real terms, the budget of 2024 that was around $38 billion had a higher value using that exchange rate, compared to the budget of 2025 that is almost 50 trillion.

I don’t think the focus should be on the amount that would be borrowed. Our greatest problem is that our currency has been devalued and it is affecting everything. For instance, with the devalued naira, everything you want to do that involves importing, you are at a disadvantage. This is because the cost per USD remains the same, but you have a high exchange rate to contend with. This means that you must spend excessively. Just imagine that before now the price of a Prado Jeep was about 40 to 50 million naira. But today, it will cost you up to 200 million naira.

So let’s not look at the quantum and volume of that figure. In reality, Nigeria’s budget is absolutely low. South Africa has a lesser population to that of Nigeria, their budget is about $128 billion. Countries like Morocco and Egypt, population sizes are not anywhere near Nigeria’s population but check out their budget.

So for a 230 million population, to be doing a budget of about $30 billion is quite low. This is because when you look at the budget breakdown, and see what key sectors like defense, health, education and others got, and then compare the real value of the said trillions today to what we had last year, you will see that last year was even much better.

Nigeria does not have any business doing a $30 billion budget. It is too low. It is very, very low for a country that has the level of natural resources and human capital. That budget cannot lead us anywhere. If you take $30 billion and put it in our education alone. In fact, take $30 billion and put it in just federal universities, federal Polytechnic and federal colleges of education and unity schools, they will not still be the best standards in Africa.

Now in this $30 billion, a substantial amount of it is to be borrowed. When you compare the money that we are to borrow, because it’s a deficit budget, we are borrowing about 13 trillion Naira, and we are servicing our debt in the same budget with about 15 trillion Naira, What that means is that the money we are borrowing is even lower than the money that we require to service our debt. That means all the money we are borrowing is going to go into debt servicing. Looking at the reality, we in the labour movement are not quite impressed.

All we want is that the government must sit down and see how we can grow our revenue. Our revenue must be grown. Because with this level of revenue, year in, year out, we are going to be struggling. And remember, this is still a projection with inflation pegged at about 15 percent with the belief that crude is going to do over 2 million barrels per day.

So with those assumptions that are even in the budget, if you check the last five years, those assumptions had never been met. What that means is that the deficit might even increase from 13 trillion to maybe somewhere around 15 to 20 trillion. And this deficit we add into our overall debt profile that in 2026, when we also present the same budget, instead of servicing with 15 trillion, we are going to be servicing something about 20 trillion or much more.

I think there should be a national discussion on how our revenue base could be increased. Nigeria should be doing a budget up to the tune of minimum of $250 billion not $30 billion, we cannot grow economically with such a budget.

What is the position of TUC on the issue of increasing revenue through the recent tax bill?

To increase revenue base, the first thing that must be looked at is natural resources. In Nigeria, we are blessed with enormous material and mineral resources. If you go to Akure, Ondo State, the bitumen we have in Ondo could tar almost all the roads in Africa. But go there today, nothing is happening. The thin deposit we have in Jos is enormous. We have also heard about the gold deposit in Zamfara. So literally, in every local government in Nigeria, we have resources that could be harnessed, resources that could be tapped. So the question is, why are we not tapping them today?

Therefore, we think that the first thing the government must do is to encourage these economic activities. What the government must do is to partner with the private sector to ensure that these mineral resources are being tapped. The limestone deposit that we have in Nigeria could service Sub-Saharan Africa. We have Dangote. Good. But what are we doing to encourage and bring in others? So these are the ways with which the government would increase its revenue. Then come to gas. We have one of the highest gas deposits in the world. Today, there is a scramble for gas all over the world. Why can’t we replicate another NLNG? The one we have in Bonny. There is another NLNG in Brass that has been in the pipeline for over 10 years. Why can’t we make that come to fruition? Why can’t we go to other states in the Niger Delta? I mean, go to Delta, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Ondo, with a huge gas deposit, and begin to exploit this gas. How much does NLNG pay to the government as a dividend every year? It’s quite humongous. So when we expand it across the board, we are going to generate more money. So the government should not be fixated on taxation alone.

Even the taxation, how many Nigerians are paying tax. Instead of increasing tax rates, should the government improve the efficiency of collection? Because today, only about 5 percent of Nigerians that are paying tax, even the VAT, I’m not quite sure that the rate of collection is up to 10 percent. So if the tax net is increased, the government is going to have more money. So instead of you increasing the rate, you could broaden the people you are bringing into the net. So for us in TUC, that has been our advocacy,

Suggestions on how the government should turn around Nigeria’s misfortunes to fortune in 2025?

What we have since identified as a major cross of the economic suffering today in Nigeria, is actually the exchange rate.

When we saw in the budget that the government has moved the exchange rate officially from what it was in the last budget, to 1500 in this budget, we were not excited about that. Because we know that with an exchange rate of 1500 then literally nothing is going to reduce. But if the exchange rate was brought down to maybe 1000 to 1200. then the CBN comes up with policies that will encourage the downward trend of the exchange to be much better. In reality, what could bring down the plight of Nigerians directly, is policies that will bring down the exchange rate to about 1000 or just a little above that.

So our advice to the government is that one, they have to redouble their effort. Government must consider how its policies affect the micro economy of Nigerians. Because that is what affects me and you.

Government must design systems that will ameliorate the current suffering in the country. In the 2025 national budget, inflation is projected at 15% this 2025. I pray it happens.

It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that the welfare of its citizens is prioritized. It’s the responsibility of the government to ensure that there is food security. So for us, the government should ensure massive investment in agriculture, not just the federal government, but the states and the local government, because when a man has eaten, then he will start thinking of any other thing.

Today, hunger is excruciating, and we strongly believe that with strong collaboration between the federal and the state government as well as the local government, they could bring up policies to ensure that farmers go back to farm. More importantly, the government must ensure that there is security across Nigeria.

TUC president Copyright © 2022 Nigerian Tribune Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).