COVID-19: Fund research institutes to solve economy challenges, ULC tells FG

The United Labour Congress (ULC) has urged the federal government to invest at least 20 percent of the entire donation towards fighting COVID-19 pandemic to fund research institutes in the medical, pharmaceutical and herbal sectors of the country.

This according to the National President of the association, Comrade Joe Ajaero will help mitigate the impact and join the league of countries looking for a vaccine to end the spread of the virus

Comrade Ajaero in his May Day Speech on Friday, maintained that it is crucial to deeper cooperation across all spheres so the country can combat the economic challenges caused by COVID-19 and the falling oil prices.

“Invest more in Education especially in the area of Research institutes across the nation. We suggest the investment of at least 20% of the entire donations received by the federal government towards mitigating the pandemic to fund the activities of the various research institutes whose mandate relate to medical, pharmaceutical and herbal research.”

“We insist that the most effective strategy to fight Coronavirus Pandemic and indeed other national challenges is to build solidarities across our various divides.

The deepening of cooperation and widening of inclusivity amongst our various peoples would enable our nation successfully confront all its challenges. It remains the only way we can turn the adversity that the COVID-19 has become into a huge platform for development as a nation.

“We are the union, the cradle of solidarity! We are the workers, the martyrs for national survival in the midst of the pandemic! We work while others sleep! Every agenda designed to fight the unions furthers the effort at fighting against solidarity and social inclusiveness in Nigeria thus castrates our potentials for ultimately emerging as economic superpowers globally.”

According to him, “we are worried that a nation that has huge Oil and gas deposits and exported large quantities over the years will become solely dependent on borrowing from everywhere to run itself.”

“The recent addition of U$3.4b borrowing from the IMF leaves us with sense of foreboding. We are worried because the debt so far accumulated was not properly used and that explains the continued reliant on more borrowing.

Our understanding is that this is an RFI with the consequences. These borrowings must stop now to protect our future generation as there is no result on the ground for the ones already borrowed.”

“It is a shame that we have continued importing Petroleum products. It is also a shame that we have also privatised it so that the products have become inaccessible to majority of the citizens causing serious distortions to our economic processes.

This government promised to revitalise all the refineries and build more but has since abandoned this wise programme on which it rode into power.

We have been condemned to spending nearly 50% of FX receipts on financing the purchase of refined petroleum products. This has not only put undue pressure on the Naira but has also denied our nation the benefits of rising oil prices.”

READ ALSO: Why Nigeria may lose $26bn over dwindling crude oil sales

The union further demanded that the price of Premium Motor Spirit(PMS), AGO and DPK be reviewed drastically downwards as the present prices are a rip-off of the citizenry and indeed not justified by any known market parameters.

We should not be paying anything less more than N60/litre of PMS and the federal government should allow this reflected at the pumps to stop this gang-up against the masses.
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“Privatisation has not only encouraged rent-seeking in an economy that is already traumatised but has also crippled the capacity of the commandeered utilities to deliver services critical for national development to the masses.

With Power sector privatisation, Electricity ceased to be social and became commercial. This has made it increasingly inaccessible to the people who need it to drive the various segments of our economy, excluding them from effectively contributing to wealth creation thus catalyse development.”, he said.