By Uche Amunike
The Trade Union Congress (TUC), says that it is putting together , a clause in the forming of a new minimum wage that will ensure that the federal government will pay allocations of defaulters of the new minimum wage to workers, counting from when it is approved.
Speaking, Wednesday, during a popular program on Channels Television, Politics Today, the TUC President, Festus Osifo that the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), will be required to make direct payments to states where the governors defaulting paying the new minimum wage agreed by federal and state government Ms, Labour unions, including the organized private.
His words: ‘We are designing a system as part of this new minimum wage negotiation on sanctioning. That when a new minimum wage is passed, there must be sanctions to governors that are not being responsive, may be their FAAC allocations, may be the Federal Government can pay some monies directly to the workers instead of giving it to the states.’
He reiterated that the present minimum wage of N30,000 can no longer take care of the well-being of the average Nigerian worker, stating that even five years after the minimum wage act of 2019 was signed and approved by former President Muhammadu Buhari, not all governors are paying the current wage award which will expire by April. He further stated that the act is to be reviewed every five years in order to meet up with contemporary economic demands of Nigerian workers.
Recall that the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have on several occasions, called on the administration of President Bola Tinubu, to quicken the upward review of wage awards.
In January, the federal government inaugurated a 37-man Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage. The mandate given to this committee was to recommend a new minimum wage for the country.
While the TUC demanded a N447,000 new monthly minimum wage, per worker, the NLC made their own demand of N794,000 per worker.
Osifo stated that the cost of living of an average Nigerian worker has been affected by inflation, noting that every state governor can afford to pay every public servant N447,000, if they so wished because they now get more monthly revenue allocation by the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
Hear him: ‘This is a demand that we have put forward. Look at the states, as at April (2023), what was shared as Federal Allocation was somewhere around N400bn but as at last month (February), what was shared was close to N2trn.’
According to FAAC, the three tiers of government distributed a total sum of N1.15 trillion in February 2024, and not N2 trillion.
Osifo further stated: ‘So, what that means is that the portion of money that is accruable to states has grown up astronomically. And majority of that money is attributable to the exchange rate.’
‘If the money that are accruable to states from the Federal Account is about times four or times five today, most of the state governors should be able to do much more.’
‘What we are asking is that these state governors, they must be responsive. Beyond the money they share in Abuja, Nigeria is a blessed country, these governors must be up and doing, they must put on their thinking caps.’
