By Abraham Osezuah
It is necessary to state here that as As FG mulls payment of N702bn to civil servants as cost of living allowance, we in the small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) also need help to survive with the Nigerians that are with us
I want to use this medium to bring the attention of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) to also consider the non civil servants who are also citizens of this country. The other Nigerians who by no fault of theirs are either underemployed, unemployed or entrepreneurs. They have no union like the TUC and NLC to speak for them.
Within the week my staff met me to demand for wage increase due to the hardship that came with the fuel subsidy removal. About twenty that I pay salary every month. They were justified to ask. I have considered the option of getting some of them that can work from home to do so for three days in a week while the management consider appropriate salary increment.
I want to use this medium to appeal to the FGN to also consider a programme to ameliorate the hardship of small and medium scale enterprises like ours who are being forced to sack workers.
Such programmes can be a deliberate policy to pay companies like us that have worked for various Ministried, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government for certified works.
I also want to encourage the new administration to continue with the good works they have done so far and try not to lose focus.
▪︎ Engr. Osezuah is the Managing Director of
Empee Engineering Consultants Limited.
