Key highlights
- Ngige said the Tinubu-led administration will set up a committee to review minimum wage immediately after it comes into power.
- He said this is based on the recommendation that the minimum wage should be reviewed every 5 years with the last one done in 2019.
- He also said the Buhari administration has approved pay raise for civil servants with effect from January 1, 2023, to cushion the effect of inflation, and others.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, has said the incoming administration of the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, should review the new minimum wage immediately after its inauguration on May 29, 2023.
This was made known by Ngige while featuring as a guest on a Channels Television programme, Politics Today, on Wednesday night, where he said the next government should come up with a new minimum wage higher than the current N30,000 by May 2024.
Buhari administration approves pay increase for civil servants.
The minister revealed that the outgoing administration of President Muhammadu Buhari approved pay raise for “hardcore civil servants”, effective January 1, 2023, adding that there is a provision for it in the 2023 budget.
Ngige, who did not state the amount or percentage increase, said the pay raise is to enable civil servants to cushion the effect of inflation, increase the cost of living, increase transportation, and increase housing increase in electricity and other utilities.
He also said that the government had approved different percentages of pay increases for staff of corporations and agencies depending peculiarities of each organisation.
According to the minister who was a member of a committee that negotiated a new minimum wage in 2018 which ended in 2019, more than one year, the minimum wage in the West African country should be reviewed every 5 years to fit the current standard of living.
- Dr Ngige said, “It is a tripartite negotiation involving the public sector, private sector and state governments,” he said, adding that the minimum wage that went to the National Assembly then saw an increase from N18,000 to N30,000 though many states are yet to implement it.
- “We entrenched in that bill or law that minimum wage will now have an automaticity of review every five years.
- “So, from 2019 when it came into effect 2024 will be five years but we also made a recommendation in our document which we submitted that the discussion, of the negotiation, should start one year from May 2024 when it is supposed to kick-start.
- “So, I’m envisaging that as of May 2023, the government will empanel the new minimum wage review committee for the nation.
- “In my handover note which I am going to hand over to the transition committee and the next government, I am recommending that the discussions start anytime from May 2023.”
What you should know
- Earlier in January 2023, the National Salaries Incomes and Wages Commission revealed that it had initiated the process for the review of the National Minimum Wage.
- It said as part of the process to review the minimum wage, which would be due in 2024, the commission had held a series of meetings and training towards nationwide monitoring of the Minimum Wage Act 2019.
- Also in February 2023, the Secretary to the Government of the Federal, Mr Boss Mustapha, assured that the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is committed to improving the minimum wage of workers to boost productivity.