The Federal Government has directed public media outfits under the Federal Ministry of Information to articulate and present challenges facing them within six weeks for considerations.
The Supervising Minister of Labour and Productivity, Alhaji Kabiru Turaki, gave the directive at a meeting with the Radio, Television, and Theatre Art Workers Union (RATTAWU) in Abuja.
The minister was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Dr Clement Illoh, at the meeting which had in attendance representatives of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) and other media stakeholders.
The newsmen reports that the meeting was a follow up to January 6, following warning strike embarked upon by the unions in 2014.
The ministry was also mandated to coordinate interactive meeting with agencies under it to review the problem of poor funding and decay of infrastructure in public media outfits.
It was also directed to look at ways of addressing low patronage of public media outfits by government agencies and proffer solutions to the issues.
The ministry was also required to articulate the agreed positions of the stakeholders arising from the interactive meeting and send a memo for consideration to the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
The minister expressed disappointment with the low turnout of the representatives of the affected agencies at the meeting.
He urged the trade unions to suspend their agitation for immediate negotiation with the government on separate salary structure for media workers.
He said that government has stepped down all issues of pay review, adding that government was presently working on the salary harmonisation.