MINIMUM WAGE: FG, STATES ALREADY IN ARREARS

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, has said both the federal government and the states are already owing arrears of workers’ salaries by virtue of the N30,000 new Minimum Wage law which took effect from April 18, 2019.

Speaking in a interview with journalists in Abuja Sunday, Ngige said the federal government had constituted a committ to work out a new template that would help make the consequential adjustments needed to commence the payment of the N30,000 minimum wage.

He also explained that negotiations would soon begin on the actual template to be used for the payment of the new wage, which would be worked out with the Joint Negotiating Council at both the federal and state levels.

The minister, who noted that the emphasis of the new minimum wage was on the vulnerable and those workers down the ladder, said the government had set up a technical committee under the Salaries and Wages Commission to work out what the federal government would do for their workers and then advise the state governments appropriately.

On the insistence by some state governments that they would not be able to pay the N30,000 minimum wage, Ngige said the law on National Minimum Wage was binding and that no state could afford to disobey it.

He attributed the delay in commencing the payment of the new minimum wage to some bureaucractic bottlenecks which would soon be sorted out.

Speaking on what the state governments should avoid in the implementation of the new minimum wage, Ngige said states would need to invite the workers’ unions to negotiate the consequential adjustments arising from the new minimum wage rather than applying the principle of percentage increase across board.

The minister recalled the mistake made in 2011 by some states when they applied the principle of percentage increase across board and were not able to pay.

The minister, however, allayed the fears of state governments, saying that there is an aspect of the labour law that allows for dialogue and negotiations on how each state graduate the wage bill to enable them fulfill their obligations to workers.