The Federal Government has said that it will not borrow from the contributory pension fund to provide palliatives to cushion the effect of the COVID-19 lockdown in the country.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, said this on Friday in Abuja at the 19th joint national briefing of the committee.
The Contributory Pension Scheme, which came into existence in 2004, has grown to over N10trn.
Apparently reacting to an earlier comment by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President, Mr. Ayuba Wabba, who opposed the reported move, the SGF said that although the government had toyed with the idea of borrowing from the fund, it concluded that it was too early for government to dip its hands into the fund.
Mustapha said, “We had looked at the issue of pension funds. As a matter of fact, we even got the minister of state for education to do us a position paper and our conclusion was that the time is not even right for us to go there because the entire world order in terms of our economy and in terms of our health system has been disrupted by COVID -19 and the consequences nobody can imagine until probably the dust is settled.”
Meanwhile, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment has promised to intervene and resolve the industrial dispute between the Plateau State Government and some state health workers who were allegedly sacked.
The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr. Festus Keyamo, at the briefing said that while the National Industrial Court (NIC) had closed, due to the COIVID-19 lockdown, for workers to seek immediate judicial relief, the ministry would be ready to act as conciliator in the matter between the health workers and the state government.
According to him, the ministry will only intervene in industrial cases that involve health workers because of the nature of the services they are providing during this pandemic.
“Our duty in the ministry of labour is to act as conciliators in such a circumstance. For now, because we are very much aware of the impediments, if any such thing occurs now in respect to health workers who suffer any kind of injustice from their employers, the impediments are that the courts are not opened especially the National Industrial Court (NIC), they can’t rush to court and get a relief.
“Even the ministries are closed for now. But perhaps, they can try and get in touch with us through the ministry’s emails or even my personal social media handle. If they send me a direct message, because these are unusual times, to act as conciliators at this time. We understand the primacy of the work of health workers now so we can make exception only for health workers; to come out of our confinement to act as consolidators in such cases,” Keyamo said.
