New Telegraph

We must provide decent jobs or face severe consequences – Ngige

…asks private school proprietors to formalize teachers

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige, has raised the alarm that there would be severe consequences of national insecurity, if employers of labour and labour unions fail to give greater attention to the formalization of workers nationwide.

Ngige, who gave the warning while addressing a joint visit by the leaders of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) and the National Pension Commission (PENCOM) on Monday in Abuja, said there was grave danger ahead.

He said: “Insecurity as you rightly pointed out is caused by people who feel cheated by society. They carry arms, weapons to vent their anger on the elites. So, the elites in Nigeria are in danger, including me, all of us. Hence, the sooner we start talking to elites in employer organisations like yours (IPMAN) the better. So we can curb this malady and prevent it from escalating.

“When you refer to the nexus between job vulnerability and insecurity, you hit the nail on the head. A lot of insecurity problems we have today are caused by unemployment and underemployment. In underemployment, people are not making up to the National Minimum Wage or working up to eight hours a week which is the ILO standard for full employment. There is a lot of danger if we fail to effectively tackle this.  But we are doing our best.”

The minister also urged all private school proprietors in the country to formalize the teachers in their employ and pay them decent wages saying: “I use the instance of your effort and this visit, to call on private school proprietors to come forward and formalize their teachers.”

IPMAN, led by its National President, Elder Chinedu Okonkwo, sought the collaboration of the Ministry of Labour in keying into the Federal Government’s Micro Pension Plan for millions of workers under its employment.

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