Economy Lost N148billion To 2-Day NLC Strike – Obele

The last two-day strike embarked on by organized labour in Nigeria cost the economy about N148 billion, according to Dr. Joseph Obele, a former Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN.
Obele, who is also a lecturer at Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Port Harcourt, said the total loss of revenue was up to N500 billion for the two days in all the sectors of the economy.
However he said that the strike was inevitable given the prevailing state of affairs in the country, where the minimum wage is just N30,000 a month and where substantial size of the population is living under the poverty line.
He said in addition to the poor pay for public workers, the hike in electricity tariff has shown negative impact on the aviation sector, electricity, fuel distribution, health, bank and other essential services nationwide.
“It will cost a civil servant N32,000 to fill up a vehicle’s fuel tank capacity of 40 liters at N800 per litre. Invariably, the recent minimum wage in Nigeria cannot fill up fuel in a tank for a public servant that owns a vehicle. Hence it becomes paramount to demand for salary increment as inflation has brought untold hardship on the citizens.
“As the nation waits eagerly for a new regime of national minimum wage, it is important to draw our attention to key economic principles that states that sufficient household income has so much negative consequences on the economy.
“An economic theory of wage push inflation is an overall rise in the cost of goods and services that result from a rise in wages. Producers must increase the prices they charge for goods and services to maintain corporate profits after an increase in employee pay.
“The overall increased cost of goods and services has a circular effect on the wage increase. Higher wages will eventually have to compensate for the increased prices of consumer goods as goods and services in the market overall increase,” he said.
Dr. Obele however called on organised labour to consider the impact of a huge salary increment on the economy before insisting on huge minimum pay as “big increment without purchasing power value in the market makes no sense.”
He said, “An ideal increment with market value should be encouraged and not excessive increment that will destroy the market structure with aggressive inflationary rise.”