With the Organised Labour’s January 23 deadline fast approaching, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, says the extraordinary meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on National Minimum Wage is hold until the National Economic Council (NEC) concludes deliberations on the matter.
He told State House correspondents that the Federal Government is hopeful of tidying up all loose ends as it awaits NEC’s final position on the new national minimum wage that will enable it fully swing into action.
Alhaji Mohammed, who spoke on the outcome of FEC’s extraordinary meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Tuesday, however assured that the Council’s meeting on the issue is work in progress.
According to the Minister; “I cannot talk on the outcome of the meeting over minimum wage because it’s work in progress.
“It would also be discussed by the National Economic Council (NEC) before we can brief the media”.
Chaired by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, NEC is Nigeria’s highest economic-decision-making body with the 36 state governors, Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udoma and FCT Minister, Mohammed Bello, as members.
The Organised Labour is insisting on a N30,000 minimum wage as proposed by the Ama Pepple-led tripartite committee, while the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) were insisting on its N24,000 proposal.
By the existing agreement, the Federal Government has until January 23, 2019 to transmit the new minimum wage bill to the National Assembly (NASS) for deliberations or risk a nation-wide shut-down by the Labour movement
The President had on January 9, 2019 inaugurated a Technical Advisory Committee on the implementation of the new National Minimum Wage and reiterated his commitment to its payment.
The committee is expected to recommend “modalities for the implementation of the new minimum wage in such a manner as to minimise its inflationary impact, as well as ensure that its introduction does not lead to job losses’’. – NAN
