Metro
MINIMUM WAGE: Ngige sings new tune, saysb employees can’t fix salaries
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, may have foreclosed organised labour’s insistence on a new minimum wage of N30,000.
He is insisting that an employee cannot dictate his salary for his employer.
He however said the new minimum wage must be an agreement reached mutually.
The minister, according to a statement by the Director of Press at the Ministry, Samuel Olowookere, said this when the new Director General of the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association, Mr. Timothy Olawale; and his predecessor, Mr. Olusegun Oshinowo, visited him.
Ngige said: “We need to arrive at a figure which the employers can afford to pay as an employee cannot fix a figure for the employer. Rather, it must be based on mutual agreement by the tripartite partners.
“It is not a function of moving motions or voting at the National Tripartite Negotiation Committee that the figure must be as the organised labour appears to make it look.
Read also: Latest UN report puts Nigeria’s population at 195.9m
“There is absolutely therefore no need to heat up the polity. The government’s proposed new minimum wage figure is clearly based on critical facts and indices incapable of causing disequilibrium in the economy.”
The minister also said it was important for the organised labour to accept a new minimum wage based on the capacity and the ability of both the government and the private sector to pay.
He called NECA to appeal to the organised labour to accept the new minimum wage figure mutually agreeable to all the partners.
It would be recalled that Labour had insisted on N30,000 while the Federal government proposed N25,000. The private sector was said to have proposed N24,000 while state governments proposed N20,000.
RipplesNigeria… without borders, without fears
Click here to join the Ripples Nigeria WhatsApp group for latest updates.
Join the conversation
Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism
Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.
As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.
If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.
Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.
INVESTIGATION: In Kwara, multimillion-naira milk processing plant is abandoned, converted to a chicken outlet
After the government spent millions of naira to establish a milk processing plant in Kwara State that would provided jobs...
SPECIAL REPORT: For Sokoto communities, promise of healthcare is akin to death sentence
In this story, ABDULRASHEED HAMMAD delves into the dire realities of Primary Health Care services in Sokoto State, shedding light...
ICYMI…SPECIAL REPORT: NNPCL hides behind PIA to frustrate disclosure, accountability
Nigeria’s major oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), in what appears to be a common practice of disregard...
INVESTIGATION: Multi-million naira Ekiti resort center remains uncompleted a decade after
The multimillion-naira project, expected to comprise recreational buildings, now consists of cassava farmland, a bush used for excretion, and a...
SPECIAL REPORT: Torturous experiences of students with disabilities in Oyo tertiary institutions
For students with disabilities in Oyo state-owned tertiary institutions, learning is a torturous and distressing experience, considering the building structures...