By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

ABUJA — THE Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, on Tuesday urged state governors to adopt Compressed Natural Gas, CNG, technology, saying that the advantage of CNG buses is high.

The NLC also appealed to the governors to partner with it and provide more CNG vehicles so as to cushion the high transportation fare workers are facing.

President of NLC, Comrade Joe Ajaero made the appeal in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital during the commissioning of 10 CNG buses provided by the Labour center for the North Central zone.

Ajaero said that the importance of transportation in the economic growth of any nation is key, and appealed to the Kogi State government to also provide additional CNG buses, infrastructure and stations to fuel them.

He expressed optimism that with professionals with labour union background  at the helm of governance in the state, the dividends of democracy will get to the grassroots.

He said: “The importance of transportation in the economic growth of any nation is very, very key, and that is why we want to appeal to you. Yes, we are coming here with the CNG busses, stationing it here as a center, but like in other states where we have been to, we ask for the state government to provide additional CNG busses and to develop infrastructure. If we keep all these CNG busses without a station to fuel it with CNG, then it doesn’t amount to anything.

“The advantage of this CNG busses is so high, if a vehicle is fueled with PMS (Premium Motor Spirit) of N50,000 it will not take you up to N15,000 to fill a CNG bus. And that is the advantage which we must all key into.

“However, if we have one or two stations here where they can fuel, infrastructure where you do conversion with conversion kits from PMS to CNG this state and entire zone will benefit from this.

“That’s exactly what we are bringing to you. And if transportation is cheap here, part of the workers problems will be solved. And if part of the workers, problem of transportation is solved, that of movement of goods and services from one part of the country to the other will also be solved.

“So we appeal to you to complement this, to get more CNG buses and adopt the CNG technology and see the benefits inherent therein.”

The NLC President said that the importance of having industrial peace and growth in productivity cannot be overestimated, adding , “If there is industrial peace in Kogi state, the productivity of this state will be high, and that is why, as much as possible, we try to maintain industrial peace.

“Peace doesn’t mean absence of disagreement, but industrial peace makes sure that schools run normally from term to term, from semester to semester, works the same thing, electricity flow, every other thing normal and such, environment is good for business.”

He told the government to look into the issue of proscription of unions in tertiary institution in the state which was done by the previous administration, pointing out that check-off dues were not remitted.

“It is an appeal, and that appeal, I will join it with the issue of collection of dues by agents, although the Head of Service was protesting that. For these two areas are outside the jurisdiction of any state government.

“So it’s advisory that you look at them, trade union matters are under the exclusive jurisdictional list of the government, not on the concurrent list, so that we make sure we resolve this. If  things were not going well before, we want it to start now, because the people here now know, and they know too well.

“So use your machinery, Your Excellency, to look into these issues, because those are not issues we want to start love later with. But this opportunity here is an opportunity for us to share ideas and see how we resolve them.”

He commended the State government on the issue of minimum wage implementation and taking a frontal lead land maintaining it  religiously.

He appealed for the upscaling of it from about N72,000 it is paying currently to about N85,000 so that the leadership of the NLC would come to the state and celebrate.

Responding, the Deputy Governor, Comrade Joel Salifu Oyibo, said that the administration of Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo knows what the masses need, adding that having come from the grassroots, the government is ready to serve everybody.

The Deputy Governor commissioned the 10 CNG buses provided by the NLC