ABUJA (ILO Press Release) – The ILO Country Office Director for Abuja, Mr Dennis Zulu has commended Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association for its leadership role during the COVID-19 pandemic. He made this statement virtually during the 63rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the organization. As usual, the meeting attracted members of NECA and its partners including representative of the Federal Ministry of Labour, Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria.

Alluding to the new normal, Mr Zulu stated that holding the meeting virtually was indeed one of many examples of how the world has changed. He commended NECA for taking the initiative to collaborate with the ILO to undertake an assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on enterprises in Nigeria and for supporting its members with relevant information and tools needed to overcome the challenges occasioned by the pandemic.

Despite being a health crisis, Mr Zulu regretted that COVID-19 had brought with it many socio-economic challenges that the world was grappling with and would continue to affect the world in the near future. He listed some of the impacts of the pandemic to include Company closures, increased layoff of workers, declining productivity levels, increased indebtedness at corporate and individual levels, increased levels of poverty and an economy at the verge of recession. He commended nations, including Nigeria, that were implementing measures such as wage subsidies, job retention schemes, tax reliefs amongst others, to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on economies.

Mr Zulu also told the participants that with the pandemic, “we have had to fast track rapidly into the future of work”. Reminding the participants of the ILO Centenary Declaration for the Future of Work, adopted in 2019, he stated that only very few would have predicted that teleworking would become the norm for many employees in 2020. He reminded the participants that although the pandemic posed numerous challenges, it was evident that some new opportunities had arisen which if taken advantage of could improve efficiency and productivity as we aspired for better normal.

In his speech, the President of the NECA, Mr. Taiwo Adeniyi lamented that COVID-19 had worsened Nigeria’s challenging, unpredictable business environment and unstable economy. He however added that COVID-19 had further demonstrated the urgent need for the diversification nof the Nigerian economy instead of continuously depending on oil sector for it income. He described as worrisome the nation’s increasing debt profile. He opined that COVID-19 had presented Nigeria the best opportunity to fast-track the full deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum sector and channel the proceeds into funding development project and financing annual budget deficits.