FG Fixes Date For Payment Of New Minimum Wage
By Naomisophyblog
The federal government led by President Bola Tinubu has reiterated its intention to raise the minimum wage for workers from N18,000 to N30,000 starting in April 2024.
This is in addition to the N24.66 trillion that the federal government has set aside for salary payments between 2024 and 2026.
According to Naomisophyblog, the Tinubu administration’s pledge to pay a minimum salary of N30,000 is the outcome of multiple meetings with labor groups, particularly after the withdrawal of the gasoline subsidy.
The government had promised to compensate workers with a wage award of N35,000 in order to lessen the severe impact of the elimination of subsidies. The labor leaders argued that this ought to happen before a new minimum wage is implemented.
After months of talks, the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council and the federal government’s team decided on October 18, 2019, to implement the N30,000 minimum salary.
On Thursday, labor groups did, however, affirm that they had begun negotiations with the federal government, stressing that the nation’s labor legislation mandates that the minimum wage be reviewed every five years.
“It is open knowledge that the review of the national minimum wage is a matter of the law which is expected to happen in 2024,” stated NLC national president Joe Ajaero recently.
According to Idris Mohammed, Minister of Information and National Orientation, the previous minimum wage system would expire in March 2024.
The Information Minister stated that the increased take-home pay was intended to take the place of the short-term palliative measure that the government had implemented to lessen the pain brought on by the elimination of gasoline subsidies.
“There will undoubtedly be a new salary structure effective April 1, 2024. This is the reason these palliatives were chosen in order to mitigate financial stress in the interim. We stated in our negotiations with Labour that there was no simple solution to the pay problem. It will be worked on by a committee that includes Labour itself, according to Mohammed.
The committee is being formed, and we are discussing it with Labour. We also anticipate that a new wage will start in April when the existing wage regime ends at the end of March. We will finally have a suitable pay structure for workers throughout Nigeria thanks to this wage regime. We anticipate that state governors and the commercial sector will follow suit.
According to a senior NLC official, organized labor had started negotiations with the government.
The existing minimum wage will end on April 1, 2024. We have all decided to form a national wage bargaining committee, and each party should be represented on the committee.
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Likewise, Benson Upah, the NLC’s chief of information, declared: “The new minimum wage is to come into effect next year.”
