Workers in the informal Sector of Kogi State have presented a charter of demand to the incoming administration of Alhaji Usman Ahmed Ododo.
Comr. Maryam Usman Ibrahim, Chairperson, Kogi State Federatioln of Informal Workers Organization of Nigeria FIWON made the call in a charter of demand issued to Newsmen in Lokoja today.
The Federation of Informal Workers’ Organizations of Nigeria (FIWON) is an umbrella organization of working people in the informal sectors of the Nigerian economy with presence in 21 states of Nigeria.
About 30 organizations of informal workers organizations are affiliated to FIWON in Kogi State.
The demand of FIWON include:
Skill upgrading and entrepreneurial training. Government should support training of informal workers in these critical areas:
i) Skills upgrading: training and retraining of informal workers especially in new technologies.
ii) Entrepreneurship education: include simple book keeping skills, business registration etc
iii) Occupational health and safety: training: so that informal workers can get used to using Personal Protective Equipment, PPEs, hand gloves and overalls for mechanics, waste pickers, protective goggles for welders, etc, etc).
3. Development of Business Clusters: Informal workers have suffered a lot of harassment and eviction from their work – spaces in recent years worsening unemployment and precarious living standards in the state.
We demand construction of more work clusters such as simple neighbourhood markets, street markets, mechanic villages and IT hubs.
4. Healthcare for the Vulnerable: There is so much unnecessary loss of lives of the vulnerable on account of poor access to healthcare facilities. We demand free health services for pregnant women, children under-5 years and elderly people above 65 years in Kogi State. This will drastically reduce maternal and child mortality in the state and care for our poor elders who can’t afford hospital services.
5. Harmonization of taxes, levies, ground and shop rents and sales of tickets etc with payment into a central portal to stop leakages of informal sector payments into private pockets, arbitrary increases of these taxes and levies.
6. Single Digit Credit schemes should be created and/or expanded with informal sector leaders involved in its management and operation. Credit schemes can also be linked to Informal Workers’ Cooperatives Societies in the state. This will be in line with ILO Resolution on Promoting the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) for Sustainable Development, adopted on April 18, 2023 as well as the SDG Goal 8
7. Recognition of informal workers and inclusion in decision making by government: FIWON also request that leaders of informal workers be represented in the formulation of public policies that affect informal workers as well as participate in the administration and governance of public schemes that affect them. Given that the informal economy employs over 90% of the active working population in the state, we demand the creation of a Ministry or at least a special agency of government committed to the oversight of the informal sector in the state, with requisite representation of informal sector leaders in its governance.
The above policies if carefully implemented, will boost productivity of the informal sector in the state, enhance social cohesion and engender more rapid economic development. It will also encourage support for government policies and programmes.