- Fed Govt to Implement Ratified ILO Conventions
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, has promised that the administration will all ratified International Labour Organisation’s (ILO’s) conventions will be implemented.
Ngige gave the assurance in his Abuja office when he received a team of experts on a working visit from the ILO.
He said: “It is important to express our efforts at aligning our labour laws with the contemporary issues in labour administration and in the spirit of ILO convention to which we are a signatory. In this regard, efforts are being made to fast-track the passage of the outstanding labour laws by the National Assembly with necessary review and amendment in tandem with development in International Labour Standards and the dynamics in Nigeria labour administration system, policies and practices.
“To ensure that progress is made in updating the outstanding labour bills, officials of the Ministry of Labour and Employment recently undertook in-house validation meeting to effect corrections and inputs made during the tripartite meeting and prepare the bills for further scrutiny, validation and consensus building by all stakeholders. I want to assure you that we will again re-energise the various departments so we can speed up on the revalidation of the bills to see the one we can again get into law.”
Ngige said Nigeria was one of the frontline member-states of ILO, having been elected into its governing board as a government representative, workers’ representatives and employers’ representative; hence, it cannot be seen to be lagging behind.
“I want to assure you that with the technical assistance you have rendered, we will work diligently to ensure that we render outstanding reports in September as stipulated; we will do so and I want to assure you that we will not fail,” he assured.
Earlier, the ILO team leader, Mr. David Dakenoo Kwabla, said the they came at the invitation of the Federal Government to come and build capacity for the ministry andother relevant stakeholders in the country. This is to enable the government to fulfill its obligation on the reporting on international labour standards.
He stated that for the past two days, there had been an intensive training programme for both the ministry and other relevant stakeholders, such as the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) and the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA).
