* We call on
labour movement to reject the planned increase in VAT, and demand full
implementation of N30,000 minimum wage across the board without any odious
condition
PRESS STATEMENT
The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) strongly condemns the reported
planned increase in Value Added Tax (VAT) by the Buhari/APC federal government.
According to news reports credited to government officials, the government
wants to increase VAT from current 5 percent to around 7.5 percent. This
increment, if allowed to scale through, will further worsen already high cost
of living and make life more unbearable for vast majority of the working people
and the masses. For a government that has superintended over growing
unemployment, deepening poverty and costlier social services, again increasing
VAT, a major determinant of inflation, shows how insensitive the Buhari/APC
government is.
The argument of the government that it needs to increase VAT in order to
fund new minimum wage is both illogical and blackmailing. Illogical because one
of the reasons necessitating a new minimum wage is the rising inflation, which
has made nonsense of the existing N18,000 minimum wage. Increasing VAT will
worsen the inflation rate, therefore it is tantamount to government taking with
the left hand what was given with right hand. That the government did not even
wait till the full enactment of the new minimum wage to law and its
implementation before placing a new burden on the working people shows that it
is anti-poor. Obviously, the government is not interested in alleviating the
poor living conditions of working people, but rather defends a system,
capitalism, that repeatedly needs to worsen it.
Linking the minimum wage implementation with VAT increase is blackmailing
as it tends to suggest that workers' demand for a long-overdue, but modest,
increase in their wages is the cause of inflation. Meanwhile, demand for a new
minimum wage is only a defensive demand, as costs of living have skyrocketed in
the last five years. Interestingly, it is government’s capitalist policies of
increase in fuel pump price, hike in electricity tariffs, devaluation of naira
and underfunding cum commercialization of social services, which have huge
contributed to the current terrible economic situations faced by working
people.
SPN also reject the argument that only through increment in VAT that new
minimum wage can be paid. Already, workers and ordinary people are the most
taxed section of the society, while the rich paid the least tax. According to
government sources, only a handful of millionaires and billionaires pay tax,
yet they are biggest beneficiaries of government policies and dole out. We
demand that government tax the rich, who pay the least tax but corner larger
parts of nation's wealth. Moreover, we contend that there are enough resources
to fund new minimum wage, better social services and improved infrastructures, but
only if nation's resources are redirected towards public good. For instance,
reducing emoluments of political office holders by 70 percent and equipping
ministry of works with adequate manpower and equipment will release hundreds of
billions of naira going to the private pockets of politicians and big time
contractors. Also, renationalisation of nation's mineral and natural resources
already privatised, under public control, will provide opportunity to begin to mobilise
resources to fund new minimum wage, provide millions of decent jobs, expand
social services and infrastructures.
Conclusively, the SPN calls on the labour movement to mobilise and reject
the planned increase in VAT, and insist that the N30,000 minimum wage be
implemented across the board without any odious conditions attached. While the new
N30,000 minimum is not a real living wage, it is less than half of the N65,000
Labour was demanding last year, but its implementation would be a step forward.
However with the way the federal government is planning to use the whip of
increase in VAT to undermine new minimum wage, state governments and private
sector employers will also use retrenchment as condition for implementation of
the new minimum wage, unless the labour movement begin the process of
mobilising working people and youth to oppose these neo-liberal policies.
For us in the SPN, the latest government onslaught against the working
people and the poor only confirm our position that the APC, just like its PDP
counterpart, is an anti-working people's party premised on capitalist ideology
of making the poor poorer and the rich few richer. The worsening living
conditions in the last four years, following 16 years of PDP implementation of
anti-poor policies, is a confirmation of our position. Only mass struggle of
working people, youth and the masses, can stop further attacks being planned by
the APC and PDP in the next four years. Only socialist programmes and policies
can mobilize resources and manpower to ending mass suffering in the midst of
superabundance.
Abiodun Bamigboye Chinedu
Bosah
Acting National Chairperson National
Secretary
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