NEC Sets Up Committee To Consider N702bn As Workers’ Palliative For Subsidy Removal

the palliative, the government looked at all the issues, challenges and problems holistically and set up a small committee of the council to review and come up with a term of reference to organise areas specifically where this palliative can come from and how it will be dispensed to alleviate the problem of workers and other vulnerable groups.

“We will sit within two weeks to come up with a recommendation to NEC for a holistic decision that will be taken immediately to alleviate the problem that is being encountered by the removal of the subsidy,” he said.

The Bauchi governor added that the council received other suggestions to review salaries and wages.⁣

Recall that on June 7, following the announcement of the petrol subsidy removal, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu directed the NEC to kickstart the process of working on interventions to ameliorate the impact of the subsidy removal on the people.

Speaking also, Umar Radda, Governor of Katsina, said NEC focused its discussions on how to provide palliative measures through the NG-Cares programme.

“As you are aware, the NG-Cares programme is a programme that started in 2021 running up to 2024. And then is to provide some emergency on palliatives, social needs on so many issues ranging from small farmers holders, MSMEs and other interventions,” he said.

“It’s a $750 million from the World Bank-assisted funds and it commenced a long time ago. Additional funding can be sourced from the federal government, World Bank, development partners as well as Nigerian private sector.

“In specific, the World Bank can be approached for additional financing on the NG-Cares programme. Discussion can start as soon as possible. So these are the recommendations that were made. And the economic council will pursue these recommendations for the benefit of the Nigerian, vulnerable and the poor.”