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Significant Availability Of Cash, Others Reason For Suspending Strike – NLC

About 24 hours after announcing the suspension of its planned nationwide strike over the hardship occasioned by naira scarcity, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has given reasons why it took such a decision with its sister movement, the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC).

A statement signed by NLC President, Comrade Joe Ajaero on Wednesday in Abuja, noted that labour through its state chapters had observed a significant improvement in the availability of cash, an extension of banking hours to weekends to allow more person access to cash.

Ajaero, however, explained that the presence of queues, scarcity of cash in rural areas and rationing of cash by banks were reasons why the scheduled strike was suspended for a period of two weeks to ascertain whether or not there would still be a need to embark on the strike based on reports that would emanate from the committee set up by both labour movements to monitor the situation.

He said, ” The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) immediately engaged us and we demanded that certain measures be taken to make cash available to all Nigerians.

“Some of these measures were our insistence on Saturday and Sunday full banking services until a healthy cash situation is restored and the expansion and deepening of their sorting and issuing operations to release Cash to all Bank branches across the nation.

“The NLC had since then held two sessions of Its NEC to discuss the issues and review the level of compliance with our demands by the CBN to make Cash available to Nigerians wherever they may be located in the country. In our meeting on Tuesday the 28th day of March 2023 NEC received live reports from all the states of the federation and local governments on the Cash situation in their respective locations.

On the weight of the reports received, NEC made the following observations: that the CBN has made significant efforts to curb the current Cash scarcity in the country thus to some extent complying with the demands of NEC; that Many Banks have embarked on the Weekend Banking as agreed though some Bank branches remained shut to the Public; that availability of Cash has noticeably improved in the major urban centres in Nigeria; that however in rural communities and towns, Cash scarcity seemingly persists to some degrees; that Banks have however continued to ration access to cash thus limiting financial transactions; that it does appear that normalcy has not completely been restored as long queues are still visible to allow cash flow seamlessly as before the unfortunate policy

“As a function of the reports received, and in collaboration with the TUC who also had their NEC to discuss the same issues; we resolved as follows: to suspend the proposed nationwide strike planned for today, Wednesday the 29th of March, 2023.

“Since there is a significant improvement in the availability of Cash across the nation; that meanwhile, the CBN should ensure that total normalcy is restored to cash availability within the nation in the next two weeks;

” That NLC will embark on a nationwide strike without warning if the Cash situation degenerates instead of returning to normalcy; we set up a Joint Committee at the National and State Levels to monitor and ensure sustainable compliance by the CBN towards ending the Cash crunch and removing the siege on Nigerians.

“These were some of the bases upon which our decisions rested and follow-up action to ensure that CBN remains compliant and did not renege on the agreed path towards the restoration of normalcy in the cash situation.

“We want to assure Nigerians that though there are other critical issues confronting us as a people, we are continuously committed to making sure that we roll back all anti-workers and peoples policies of the government.

“Once again we call for the continued support of all Nigerians to ensure that we rescue ourselves from actions that are designed to emasculate us both as workers and as a people. It is only by working together that we can guarantee our collective safety and interests as a people”

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