Council Of State Approves State, Federal Workers’ New Minimum Wage

Funke AzeezJanuary 22, 2019

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The national council of state has approved N27, 000 as the new minimum wage.

The council gave the approval at its first meeting of the year on Tuesday.

Chris Ngige, minister of labour and employment, said the federal government will increase the approved amount to 30,000 for workers in the federal civil service.

The minister said state governors are at liberty to add to the approved amount if they so desire.

In December 2018, the tripartite committee had recommended N30, 000 as minimum wage.

Reacting, state governors had fixed N22, 500 as the amount they could comfortably pay their workers.

Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, head, media and public affairs of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), had said “times are hard and because of financial constraints and other limitations” many states cannot afford N30, 000.

He had said: “The N22,500 was arrived at, after extensive deliberations among all 36 governors, outlining their financial capacities and liquidity, considering the economic situation of the country and the states’ other obligations to the majority of the people of their various domains.

“Governors also emphasized that N22,500 is a ‘baseline threshold’, meaning that any governor who can pay more than N22.500 is therefore free to go ahead and do so.”