Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour, has disclosed the approval of the transmission of the National minimum wage bill to the National Assembly by the National Council of State.
According to the Minister, the bill approved by the Council includes N30,000 minimum wage for Federal workers and N27,000 for states and the private sector.
The Minister of Labour made this known while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the Council of State meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Ngige explained that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and the National Economic Council (NEC) meetings have already considered the bill.
Prior to this development, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma tasked the Technical Committee on the Implementation of a new Minimum Wage inaugurated last Wednesday by President Muhammadu Buhari, headed by Bismarck Rewane, to identify additional sources of revenue to pay the minimum wage and the consequential salary adjustment that will follow.
During an interactive session with some newsmen, Udoma said that the committee would, among other things, identify additional sources of revenue to ensure that the government could meet the increased costs that would arise from the implementation of a new minimum wage without affecting government’s ability to meet the other obligations, particularly with respect to the ambitious infrastructure development plans of the current administration.
Udoma maintained that whenever a new minimum wage bill is enacted, there are demands for some wage increases even from those already earning more than the new minimum wage.
udoma said, “all these salary increases will impose additional costs on the government. therefore, the committee is expected to make suggestions as to how the government can raise additional revenues to ensure that the government can still meet its expenditure on other services such as education, health, infrastructure and other important functions of the government, after paying the increased salaries.”
