FUEL SUBSIDY

against the spirit and principles of social dialogue which remains the best platform available for the resolution of all the issues arising out of the petroleum downstream sector.

“Government cannot in one breathe be talking about deregulation and at the same time fixing the prices of Petroleum products. This negates the spirit of allowing the operation of the free market unless the government has as usual usurped, captured or become Market forces.”

Mr Ajaero called on the government to immediately instruct the NNPCL to withdraw the template to give room for dialogues between the government and labour leaders.

Meanwhile, Peoples Daily gathered that the labour leaders met with representatives of the federal government on Wednesday in Abuja.

Speaking at the end of the meeting, Mr Alake, spokesperson of the Bola Tinubu campaign, said that both parties “have been deliberating on finding very amicable solutions to the issue at hand.”

“We had a very robust engagement. We cross-fertilized ideas, ideas flew from all sides and there is one thing that is remarkable even from the Labour side, and that is Nigeria,” he said.

“We are all looking at the peace, progress and stability of Nigeria. That is what is paramount.”

Mr Alake said that the talks are ongoing and it is better for all sides to keep talking with a view to arriving at a very amicable resolution that will be in the longer-term interest of all Nigerians.

But the Trade Union Congress (TUC) President, Festus Osifo, lamented that there had been no communication between the government and labour leaders.

“If you listen to the president during the inauguration at eagles square, he said one of the hallmarks of this administration is going to be dialogue, is going to be consultation, that they are not going to lord it over us,” the TUC official said.

“I’m trying to paraphrase what he said, that he is not going to be a dictator. And what has happened in terms of day has not shown what was written in his address.

“So, all we said before now was that we ought to have sat down, have this conversation before anything could have happened.”

The official noted that labour leaders have been open to conversations but no such communication existed.

He said: “So, there was no conversation whatsoever, so for over a year, there wasn’t formal engagements and formal meetings. And because there wasn’t formal engagements and formal meetings that is why we found ourselves in this.

“If we have met before now, we would have proposed a lot of things. We have experts in our midsts who could have proffered some solutions, even the CNG how it could have been done faster. Because our own is, how do we protect the Nigerian people and the workforce?

“So, it’s not about grandstanding but it’s about how do we protect the workforce. Clearly, we have stated in our meeting today, let the statuesque ante remains, while we go back and have conversations with our principal, because the workers are our principal then we will reconvene for their discussion. But we hope that they will revert to the statuesque ante.”

Abubakar Yunusa, Abuja

Nigeria’s Tax-to-GDP ratio which, in the last 12 years, hovered between 5% to 6% rose to 10.86% by the end of 2021.

The new ratio was communicated to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), via a letter signed by the Statistician-General of the Federation, Prince Adeyemi Adeniran, on the 25th of May 2023, following a joint review by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Finance and the FIRS, using data from 2010 to 2021.

The revision took into account revenue items hitherto not previously included in the computations; particularly, relevant revenue collected by other agencies of government.

Tax-to-GDP ratio is a measure of a nation’s tax revenue relative to the size of her economy as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The ratio is a useful tool for assessing the “health” of a country’s tax system, and highlighting its tax potentials