Director General of the Nigerian Employees’ Consultative Association (NECA), Timothy Olawale, has urged the federal government to implement palliatives that would enable employers to retain their workers as impact of COVID-19 bites.
According to Olawale, the five weeks of the economic and business shutdown has over-stretched the limits of most businesses, which would certainly result in job losses.
Speaking further, he said while employers had been advised to retain the full complement of staff for as long as far as their economic indices would permit, with the realities on the ground, they would be forced to make hard business decisions in order to keep their companies afloat and meet their contractual obligations to employees.
On measures the Federal Government could take to checkmate the looming job losses due to coronavirus pandemic, Olawale said the government could collaborate with NECA as the representative body of organised private sector to implement stimulus packages that are sector-specific.
He also advocated direct interventions such as direct wage or income support, wage subsidies, tax credits or tax deferrals, short-term work schemes and moratoriums on loan payments, especially loans taken by companies within the past three months.
He further canvassed the establishment of a coronavirus job retention scheme, where the government pays up to 60 per cent of private-sector salaries until June as long as workers are not laid off.
The NECA boss argued that such a model which is already being implemented in countries like in the United Kingdom, France and Denmark, among others, would save jobs and reduce the negative impact of coronavirus pandemic on businesses if adopted.
“There should be a suspension of payments of taxes and levies; tax-free cash flow boost for employers. There should be a stimulus package to help pay wages or for investment to protect against a downturn in activity.
The payment should be open to businesses with a turnover of less than N50 million. There should also be tax payment deferrals for a period of six months, upon request, with a discount on interest rates,” he said.