MINIMUM WAGE: Fear of strike looms as Governors, NACCIMA insist on N22,500

The nation may be set for another round of industrial unrest as state governors have said states can only pay N22,500 as new minimum wage contrary to organised labour’s demand for N30,000.

The governors announced their position on the contentious new national wage after an emergency meeting of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) late Tuesday night in Abuja.

In the same vein, the Nigerian Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) on Tuesday dissociated itself from claims by organised labour that the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage agreed on N30,000.

NACCIMA explained that it only agreed to pay N22,000, while the Federal Government had proposed N24,000 of which it was not comfortable with it.

The governors’ latest agreement is N4,500 higher than the existing N18,000 workers in the lowest cadre of civil service take home every month.

Although the organised labour demanded that the government should raise the minimum wage to N30,000, the governors however said the states can only afford N22,500.

The Federal Government had recently offered to pay N24,000 as minimum wage.

But, the organised labour which appears not to be satisfied with the offer had threatened to embark on an indefinite strike if the government fails to honour the N30,000 request as the new minimum wage.

Worried by the threat, the NGF called for an emergency meeting, which had in attendance the Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen Chris Ngige, and his counterpart in the National Planning Ministry, Sen. Udo Udoma, to take a decision on the matter.

The Chairman of the Forum and the Governor of Zamfara State, Abdul’aziz Yari, who briefed newsmen after the meeting, said the decision was arrived at after a briefing from the forum representatives at the Tripartite Committee.

Yari noted that the welfare of all Nigerians is the ultimate concern of the governors, adding that the Forum was even more concerned about development, particularly in the health, education and infrastructure spheres.

“In all our states, we are concerned about the deteriorating economic situation experienced by the vulnerable segment of our population”.

Read also: MINIMUM WAGE: As strike looms, FG’s meeting with labour deadlocked again

According to him, “It is in this sense that we feel strongly that our acceptable minimum wage must be done in such a way that total personnel cost does not exceed 50 per cent of the revenue available to each state.

“Govermors, therefore, agreed to pay a national minimum wage of N22,500,” the NGF Chairman said.

On its part, NACCIMA said that “We did not also authorise the representatives of Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) and Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) to speak on our behalf. Recall that our members constitute about 50 percent of the employers in the OPS.

‘’Conversely, we do not want to speak for the thousands of employers in the informal economy whose voices have not been heard,” NACCIMA said in a letter to the Chairman of the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage Negotiation Committee, Ms Ama Pepple.

 

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