The Federal Government says the N62,000 new monthly minimum wage offer recommended by the tripartite committee set up by President Bola Tinubu was made after taking into consideration the national interest and current economic indices. Minister of National Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Atiku Bagudu, and Chairman of the 37-man Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage, Alhaji Bukar Aji, made the remarks in separate chats with THISDAY in Abuja.
However, the committee’s recommendation to the President at its meeting on Friday night was rejected by organized labour, which insisted on N250,000 as an acceptable national minimum wage. State governors, under the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), also doubled down on their rejection of the N60,000 proposed minimum wage, maintaining that compelling them to pay the proposed minimum wage will have consequences.
A source, who disclosed the position of the governors at Friday’s meeting of the minimum wage committee, said the governors held that any forced wage bill on the states could lead to the retrenchment of about 40 per cent of workers in the states. The source said that most of the states were heavily indebted due to loans taken by their predecessors and could not afford the new minimum wage. The source said only 10 states could afford the new minimum wage.
In the interview, Bagudu stated that members of the committee took cognizance of the prevailing economic situation, information, data, national interest, developments in the polity, macro economy and the ongoing economic reforms by the administration before arriving at the figure.
Bagudu’s position was echoed by Aji, who is incidentally a former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HoSF). Aji said the committee’s recommendation to President Tinubu, which would be sent to the National Assembly for passage as the National Minimum Wage Act, came as a “result of deeper understanding and deeper study of all the economic indices”.
