The Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, has reacted to President Muhammadu Buhari’s statement that “a high powered technical committee” would be set up to look into the ability of state governments to pay the already agreed minimum wage to avoid job loss, Igbere TV News reports.
Buhari made the statement at the presentation of N8.83 trillion 2019 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly in Abuja on Wednesday (yesterday).
“To avoid a system crisis on the Federal Government and states, it is important to device ways to ensure that its implementation does not lead to an increase in the level of borrowing. I am, accordingly, setting up a high powered technical committee to advice on ways of funding an increase in the minimum wage and attendant wage adjustments without having to resort to additional borrowing.
“The work of the committee will be the basis of finance bill which will be submitted to the National Assembly alongside the minimum wage bill,” Buhari said.
The President added that the committee would recommend modalities for the implementation of the new minimum wage.
But, the union in a statement by its National President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, said no Technical Committee would look into the already agreed figure of N30,000.
“We cannot use any technical committee to look into the agreed minimum wage. The President promised to pass the report to lawmakers a week after it was presented to him.
“Once the tripartite committee has met and agreed on an amount, no other committee can meet on the same issue,’’ Wabba said.
He added that it was the tripartite committee’s decision for workers to be paid N30, 000 as minimum wage and there was no going back by labour on the amount, and also noted that Organised Labour would meet, next week, to take a decision of the next line of action.
