The Federal Government on Tuesday hinted of its new moves to ensure the implementation of a standard and effective labour best practice in the informal economy.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, disclosed this while declaring open the 2021 two-day annual conference of Senior Officers of the Professional Departments of the Federal Ministry of Labour and its agencies with the theme ‘COVID-19 and the Informal Economy: Tackling the Challenges through Innovative Labour Administration Strategies’ in Abuja.
A statement by the Director, Press and Public Relations in the Labour Ministry, Mr. Charles Akpan, indicated that the conference would review the existing procedures on labour matters in the informal sector and adopt innovative ways to enhance labour administration system in the informal economy.
The minister noted that with millions of informal business operations, estimated at over 80 percent of Nigeria’s workforce and more than 95 percent of them in the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), the Nigerian economy required well defined structures to enforce national labour legislations in the sub sector.
Ngige explained that taking the regulatory step had become imperative in view of the challenges and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the workplace.
According to the minister, due to the pandemic many companies, especially in the informal economy, had to suspend operations while a few employers and employees that survived the crisis resorted to tele-working arrangements that were totally beyond the control of traditional labour administration methodologies.
He recalled that the pandemic led to unfair labour practices and erosion of rights of workers as labour inspection officers’ mobility was constrained and their capacity to inspect workplaces became weakened.
Ngige listed some of the negative impact of the pandemic on workplace practices as including but limited to wage cuts, suspension of allowances, unsafe working conditions, and in extreme cases many workers moved out of public spaces (offices and shops) in order to isolate and avoid public scrutiny.
The minister expatiated: “The risks associated with these actions are enormous and complex. The end result will be disastrous if there are no strategic approaches to checkmate them through labour administration.
”The chances are that workers become vulnerable to modern slavery, exploitation, and other unlawful employer practices such as child labour, forced labour and strong-arm employer and employee relationships,” he added.
Ngige pointed out that the principles in which labour administration operates in the country had changed due to changes in social and economic developments, information/communication advancement, and increasing informal business operations, as well as the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
He maintained that within the contexts of these changes, it had become clear that the traditional approach to enforcing labour standards would no longer be adequate to achieve government’s aim of creating decent labour administration in the informal economy.
In his remarks at the forum, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Dr Yerima Tarfa, said that the COVID-19 pandemic brought serious adverse consequences, especially in the informal economy, where unfair labour practices thrived.
He stressed that at the end of the conference, the ministry was expected to develop innovative labour administration strategies that will enable the government to address the workforce challenges posed by COVID-19 in the informal economy.
