This low budgetary is in line with what obtains on the African continent where the image and effectiveness of labour administration systems, including Nigeria, have not been helped by the low priority accorded their operations as reflected in paltry budgetary allocations. This much was admitted by Mwashimba(1999) and Richtofen(1999). Mwashimba insists,“It is known that Labour Ministries all over the world, in the majority of cases in developing countries, are allocated very little money. The Labour Ministry's share of the national budget was below 1%”( p.31). Agencies such as the Industrial Arbitration Panel(IAP) and the National Industrial Court(NIC) still have 12 and 11 members respectively. Yet it is these agencies that are charged with the task of ensuring compliance with labour standards and enforcing the rights of workers. The reality is that government does not have the will to really protect workers from the excesses of employers. It would appear that at best government is paying lip-service to ensuring the protection of workers and this explains why it finds it difficult to deal with infringement of statutory provisions. Instead, violations are treated with kid's gloves. Even in spite of the ridiculous penalties(such as N1, 000(US$7) for non-recognition of a duly registered trade union by an employer), provided for in the laws, imposing them has become difficult for government. The excuse given by an official of the Labour Ministry is that imposing such penalties would not serve any purpose and that it is better to wait for the on-going review of the laws(interview with a senior official of the Department of Trade Union Services& Industrial Relations, August 2009). Interestingly, the wholesale review of the laws which was initiated by the Obasanjo administration in 2004 with the technical and financial support of the ILO is yet to be completed. Of course this disposition should not be surprising if the government is more interested in protecting the interests of the propertied class. This bias has been clearly manifested in the emerging global economic order in which the interests of international finance capital determine the fate or treatment meted out to workers. Governments in developing/dependent countries such as Nigeria easily capitulate to the arm-twisting tactics of foreign investors who virtually insists on lowering labour standards (euphemistically referred to as labour market flexibility) as one of the pre-conditions for investing locally(see Plant, 1994 for more). The telecommunication and oil and gas sectors are notorious for this. In fact they dare not try the employment practices they implement in Nigeria in their countries of origin. 63