The Federation of Informal Workers’ Organisations of Nigeria (FIWON) has chided the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan over what it called “unkept promises of the government”.

In a statement signed by the group’s General Secretary, Gbenga Komolafe and was made available to newsmen in Lagos in commemoration of one year anniversary of the nationwide fuel subsidy protest, FIWON insisted that virtually all the promises made by President Jonathan in his televised address in the wake of the protest, have since remained unkept.

“In his first televised broadcast aimed at preventing the commencement of the strike by organised labour and civil society, President Goodluck Jonathan made the following pledges: 25 per cent cut in the basic salaries of all political office-holders in the executive arm of government to begin from this year; review of the number of committees, commissions and parastatals with overlapping responsibilities with a view to restructuring them,” a part of the statement read.

The informal workers listed other promises to include, speedy launch of a mass transit intervention programme to bring down the cost of transport nationwide, import duty waivers on all needed parts for locally made mass transit vehicles, as part of the efforts to create additional jobs in the economy; directed all MDAs to execute projects designed to cushion the impact of the subsidy removal in the short, medium and long-term as outlined in the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme document, among others.

“One year after, we ask where the mass transit buses are. We only know that some of the mass transit buses released in Abuja barely worked for two months before they began to break down along the Abuja-Nyanya part of the FCT. How many of the 370,000 jobs have actually been fulfilled? More importantly, how much of the trillions of naira stolen by petroleum marketers in collusion with government officials have been recovered? More tellingly, how many of the publicly indicted subsidy thieves have been prosecuted and jailed?”

“What is the state of the refineries now? Why are we still importing refined petroleum products? What has happened to the Petroleum industry Bill? How effective is SURE-P in fulfilling its mandate of providing ‘social safety net’ for Nigerians as announced by the Minister of Finance, Professor Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala? How much has been saved from the announced 25% cut in the basic salaries of public officials instead of the 50% reduction in salaries and emoluments that Nigerians actually demanded for during the protests?” the statement read.