The Federal Government has disclosed that due to present economic challenges, it will adjust the minimum wage of Nigerian workers.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Labour and Employment Chris Ngige on Monday in Abuja, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.
He noted that the 2019 National Minimum Wage Act has a clause which gives the FG the right to review.
What the minister is saying
At a public presentation of the NLC of 40 publication titled, “Contemporary History of Working Class Struggles’’, the minister noted that the value of the present N30,000 national minimum wage had depreciated.
“Yes the inflation has increased worldwide and it is not confined to Nigeria, that is why in many jurisdictions, it is an adjustment of wages right now.
“We as the Nigerian government, we shall adjust in confirmative with what is happening in wages.
“More importantly, the 2019 National Minimum Wage Act, right now has a clause for the review, which we started then, I do not know whether it is due next year or 2024.
He added that before the review, the adjustment of wages will reflect what is happening in the economy, just as the government has started the adjustment with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The minister also explained that the Federal Government did not take ASUU to court over the prolonged strike of the union as some people claimed, citing that ASUU was at the stage of Collective Bargaining(CBA) negotiation with their employers, the Federal Ministry of Education when they embarked on strike.
What you should know
- Nairametrics reported last November that the Federal Government announced that it begin monitoring the implementation of the National Minimum Wage Act 2019, which raised Nigeria’s minimum wage from N18,000 to N30,000
- It stated that “Those who have complied fully will be put on honours list and sanctions [will come] on those who have not and have no good reason.”
- However, this was just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine which greatly affected Global energy prices, leading to inflation not just in Nigeria, but globally.
This government wants to play the ostrich and to the gallery in this minimum wage problems. Even the Naira 30,000 minimum wage established and agreed several years ago has been overtaken by dastard events in the economy. The question arises now. Why has this government not done anything to enforce the minimum wage payment on all employers and waiting until a few months to the end of their tenure to commence the much needed awareness and action on the minimum wage and even tinkling on an increase over the 30,000. Are they seeing signs of possible loss of the 2023 election to the main opposition party and trying to create future problems for such future government?
Who is paying the #30,000 Mininum Wage? Abia State Government is not paying any Mininum Wageooo, Abia workers are really suffering from the bad economy, things are so expensive in the market of cause we all know that, yet there’s no added money to the salary to augment. I will advice, you forget the increase till next regime, let see if they can be magnanimous enough to implement it. As per OVI led administration, forget it, they will not pay.