Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, says the naira redesign and cashless is a good policy that experienced few setbacks because of the mode of implementation. He also speaks on workers’ minimum wage, salary raise amongst others in this interview monitored by Deborah Onyofufeke on Channels Television ‘Politics Today’
You heard the warning the DSS gave out today and as a member of this government what do you make of it?
Well, I’m a part of the government like you said. I will not have any view or opinion that would be different from that of the DSS. They have issued a warning so to say, so, I think what they did is a step in the right direction. It’s something that can be a deterrent if such people or such clandestine manoeuvres are going on. That serves as a warning notice that, is known that such a situation exit and that the DSS have their eyes on the ball so, it’s okay, I have nothing against it.
So, was this also discussed at the cabinet meeting?
No. Not at the Federal Executive Meeting. It is a security issue, so it is between the President who is the Commander-in-Chief, National Security Adviser, and the service chiefs.
Some other issues that could be of national security are perhaps one of those that you intervened on and I would like to know the promises that you made and what you told the labour leaders because they said considerably they’ve seen some actions but it doesn’t look like those actions are already performing wonders with Nigerians in terms of the scarcity of naira notes, fuel scarcity and of course, electricity tariff?
Well, first and foremost I think I want to thank the NLC for the mature manner in which they handled the proposed industrial action, picketing, sitting down at home, marching in the streets, and not going to work are all industrial actions. Strike, because some workers will have to withdraw their services, is also industrial action but they sounded a notice in line with its dispute Act, served it to us, and served the CBN. The leadership of the NLC, I have to say, I give them plenty of kudos because they followed the normal channel for doing things. They have to notify the Ministry of Labour because the ministry is in charge of industrial disputes exclusivity. Is for the Ministry of Labour and the federal government in matters of industrial disputes no matter how you look at it; industrial disputes, arbitration, and fixing of the national minimum wage are on item 34 on the exclusivity list, so they did the right thing. When they sent their letter we forwarded it to the CBN governor and said to the governor this is a potential situation that can degenerate into a security threat so see what you can do. We wrote back to Congress that action is being taken and they kept their cool and their action ended on Friday. That same Friday we invited them to a meeting because our contact at the CBN showed that the CBN has started reaching out also to them. The Governor of the CBN also did it right because in some cases, you give a pre-emptive notice to some employers or some other persons and they keep quiet. What is at stake here, is a dispute of interest and a dispute of rights that have been mixed by the Labour Union. The Labour Union know what they are doing because if they had said it is only for Nigerian Masses and the policy itself then it becomes a dispute of interest but they now said our workers can’t perform, they are suffering, they can’t even go to their work because they don’t have the money to transport themselves and things like that. So it becomes a dispute of interest and dispute of right, merger together. So I think they did well. We discussed this very well because before then, we have started some discussions with the governor and so when we came, they started to give an account of what they have done.
Nigerians are not looking forward to a mid-gap measure, they’re not looking for an Interim measure, they are looking for a permanent fix to these problems; talking about the scarcity of cash and fuel scarcity for almost a year or more and Nigerians have been sleeping in fuel stations, trying to get fuel into their cars, electricity tariff has been an agitation of the labour union, so are there permanent measures that the government has put in place to fix these problems?
You know the government is in this twilight that we’re going, that this government is going but the Labour union knows that we are a joint committee on electricity, fuel importation, and fuel distribution, that committee is not dead, that committee is still working. The NLC, issue of Labour and relevant ministries, the PENGASSAN and TUC leadership; we are all in this particular joint committee. That committee was set up by the minister of state and that committee is still alive, so, there’s nothing like a stop-gap measure. It’s not a stop-gap measure, even the one on cash crunch is part of the cashless policy, is the cashless policy that is coming on but is the implementation that ran into a hiccup, it’s not smooth, so the CBN is trying to smoothen it out but that doesn’t detract from the fact that we are trying to do a cashless policy in such a way that the volume of cash in circulation will not be what it used to be; they said it was about three trillion naira or there about and they want to cut it down. Yes, cutting it down is part of that cashless policy. Some of us travel abroad, you bring out cash abroad and people are looking at us as if we are coming from Mars because they’re not used to people bringing out cash. If you are bringing out cash, you are either a drug peddler or you are a man who is doing yahoo-yahoo or something like that; you’re not doing a clean business they regard anybody bringing out cash and doing cash business as somebody who is doing money laundering. That’s the first thing that will come to them.
Was it not embarrassing that the government created a policy that Nigerians are groaning under?
I have told you that the policy is not smooth in implementation, I admitted that, but whether it is a good policy? Yes, it is a good policy, that’s what I’m telling you. There is no intimidation about it. What is right is right. You travel abroad, you came back from America the other day, and did you carry more than 10,000 dollars in your bag? You can’t. if you take to declare it, you must declare it in America and once you declare it or even in the UK you must declare anything more than $10,000, and once you start spending big dollars like that some shops will even refuse to take it from you. Why can’t we get our country like that, it is a gradual process and I have agreed and I said it will take time. it wasn’t smooth so it came with some pain but overall did we get some sound benefits from it? Yes, we did. People did not buy votes on the line during the elections, I use to go for elections and I know what I saw; there was no cash exchange for votes, and it wasn’t easy anymore. Kidnappers are on break now or strike or recess, we don’t see them, bandits, and they’ve also gone on some holidays. If you go to some homes, some will tell you they can’t even get one million to give you, how much more asking them to get N20m to give you to get back somebody they kidnapped? These are the things. Don’t also forget that NFIU, the world international financial intelligence units have put Nigeria on a list of the countries that are not doing well in terms of money laundering, in terms of getting money, and the rest of them all. Shall we continue to wear that toga, we must start a journey someday and a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, this is the first step. Maybe that first step is not very good enough but it’s a step taken in the right direction.
Perhaps, those who live in the neighbourhoods of those who are feeling the pinch, might be able to tell, giving a more vivid picture of what people are going through; a hard time because of these policies.
The money is coming out, it is gradually coming out.
When your government came into power the unemployment rate stood at 8.19 per cent, now the unemployment rate is about 33.3 per cent if not higher. For those who say that your government is a failure in that respect, how do you respond to that?
Again, I laugh when you said failure. Let me tell you, unemployment was about 8.9 or 9 per cent there when we came, what was Nigeria’s population at that time? It has increased at least 15 per cent according to UN indices, what was the cost of petroleum, the mono-product for Nigeria’s economy $120 a barrel of oil. What was the volume of 2.2 million barrels a day what did our government get there’s a million from 2.2 million barrels a day what did our government get when we came we were importing from 2.2 million barrels a day to 1,000,000 barrels a day and one point even 500 thousand barrels a day, price of oil again moved oscillated and went down to $80.00 from $80 to 70, 60, 50 and one points $30 a barrel and even during the COVID, We couldn’t sell anything, no earning.
It went not only to about 20 it went over 30 per cent and you have said this for almost eight years that is the reason for the question here. Again how many jobs were you able to create in eight years?
We aid, we are lifting people from poverty in 10 years.
How many people were you able to lift out of poverty because the multi-dimensional figure on poverty that was released was way over 130 million people multi-dimensionally poor?
Well, that’s it, it was not my fault it suffered, that was COVID-19 by the economy, we went into two recessions, talk about it, how many governments before we went into recession? It wasn’t caused by us, we tried as much as we could to stop food importation, but we did other things, we grew what we ate and made sure we kept the country afloat, we didn’t have the eruptions they had in Venezuela because Nigeria and Venezuela economies are alike. You should give us some kudos, we tried our best, other.
