The Centre for Anti- Corruption and Open Leadership has called for the reversal of the increment in the Land Use Charge and
re-introduction of the tenement rate in Lagos State.
Speaking at a press conference in Lagos on Thursday, CACOL, through its Executive Chairman, Comrade Debo Adeniran, said Lagos State should put a human face to its developmental plans, noting, “It is demographically wrong to build a city for only the rich.”
“As much as this state has the envious record of almost being self-sustaining courtesy of its aggressive revenue drive, yet, the poor and toiling populace have no resting place as they are heavily
taxed and brutally displaced from their homes and places of work.
“The general cry is for the state to put a human face to its developmental plans. It is demographically wrong to build a city only for the rich.
CACOL has raised it at every opportunity that class is of essence in societal and city development.
“A mega city cannot exist without the masses. This is why CACOL joins all voices to call for the reversal of the increment in the Land Use charge, and the re-introduction of the tenement rate.
“The economic sensitivity of the effect of the recent
recession is to deliver a good level of welfarism to the people who are the worst hit”, Adeniran said.
He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to shift decidedly from the socio-economic developmental paradigm of neo-liberalism imposed on the
country by the Brettonwood global financial institutions’ hawks, which he said had effectively turned the country into a veritable dumping
ground for ‘consumeric’ industrial goods of the advanced western world.
“Many industries in the country have wound down and the nation is presently de-industrialised by the economic policies imposed on us by the quisling ruling elite that are ever ready to be errand boys of
the western world, in our corridors of power. These dangerous, neo-liberal economic pills and those who prescribed them must be fumigated out of
the Nigerian system.
We must consciously embrace system change and a
paradigm shift to alternative socio-economic order”, Adeniran added.
On the plan for a new minimum wage, Adeniran described it as a Greek Gift.
“It is interesting to get news reports of the plans of the Federal Government to pay a new minimum wage in September this year.
“It is trite to state that there are statutory mechanisms for negotiation of minimum wage and it is not the business of Government to dangle the
promises of a fantastic minimum wage, especially when such a promise is expected to come just a few months to the general elections.
“Many patriotic observers have noted that there may be hidden agenda to this promise of Eldorado for workers. This is even more curious when most
states are unable to pay the last minimum wage, while many owe workers arrears of their monthly salaries.
“In most advanced industrial economies of the world, there is no periodic rituals of minimum wage,
as the priorities are always to fix and stabilise the economy so that inflationary indices do not make nonsense of the value of workers’
wages.
“We call on the labour sector and informal unions to think out of the box and task Government to address the ailing economy, reverse its negative downward slides, so as to make the value of labour wages
Meaningful,” he said.
