BEVERLY HILLS, May 25, (THEWILL) – President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Mohammed Buba as the Chairman of the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) as desired by the the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC).
Babachir Lawal, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, made the announcement on Wednesday, following a return to negotiations with the labour leaders, in Abuja.
“We just finished our meeting with the NLC and I’m happy to announce we had a very successful meeting with an outcome that will make every Nigerian happy. First of all on the side of the government, we want to thank the NLC for their magnanimity in calling off the strike. And we thank Nigerians for being patience while the strike lasted,” he said.
“In this meeting, we have arrived at some major decisions. First of all, you would recall that before we adjourned the last meeting we had basically decided to discuss three major issues. One was the issue of the minimum wage for workers, both in government and in the private. And also Labour had raised the issue of requirement to be involved in the implementation of half a trillion naira amount of money in the budget for palliative for Nigerians that are on the fringe of society economically.
“The Labour had requested that the government reconstitute the Board of PPPRA, which they said had not being in place, the issue of the misunderstanding in the price regulation would not have arisen.
“This evening, I’m proud to announce that, first of all, a 16-man committee has been set up as a technical committee; half from the labour side and half from the government side to discuss issues concerning the minimum wage, to advice on the setting up and possible modalities of working out the committee to discuss minimum wage issue.
“The minimum wage involves almost every segment of the society, so it’s not just federal government and workers alone but also stakeholders, local government, the private sector. So, this technical committee will discuss the modalities of how this issue would be brought forward.”
NLC had last week embarked on a strike action following the increase in the price of petrol and demanded a reconstitution of the board of the PPPRA to regulate the pricing of petrol but called off the strike after entreaties and agreed to return to the negotiating table with the Federal Government.
Buba was a former managing director of Petroleum Product Marketing Company (PPMC).
Story by David Oputah
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