President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday asked the Joint Committee on
Consequential Adjustments of the new minimum wage to move swiftly with
negotiations and to avoid further delays on the matter, the Minister of Labour
and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige revealed.
As part of measures to ensure that the federal government is
no longer taken off-guard on the issues of salaries and wage adjustments, the
president said the administration would constitute a presidential committee on
salaries and allowances that will be able to take requests after the committee
on consequential adjustment has concluded its assignment.
The minister made the disclosures when he received the
leadership of the association of labour correspondents in his office in Abuja.
The minister, who spoke about plans by the federal
government to create jobs and empower the middle-income earners, also blamed
the upsurge in Boko Haram attacks and banditry on the high rate of
unemployment.
He also said that lack of jobs waa fueling social agitations
by groups such as the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
Ngige said Buhari was
very worried about the delay in the commencement of payment of the N30,000 new
minimum wage and had instructed through his Chief of Staff that a deadline be
set to end negotiations.
"It is the
determination of the president and this administration to fast track the
negotiation on consequential adjustment. I have just received a correspondence
from the Chief of Staff to the President and we are putting a deadline to that
negotiation. We are fast-tracking it because the government will also want to
put in place a presidential committee on salaries and allowances that will be
able to take requests after this consequential adjustment," he said.
The joint committee on the consequential adjustments that
was set up shortly after the signing of the new minimum wage bill into law by
the president on April 18 has failed to reach an agreement with the
representatives of unions in the public sector.
Several meetings on the matter had ended in a deadlock with
both the government’s negotiating team and labour representatives disagreeing on
the percentage increase workers at levels are expected enjoy.
However, it was gathered that after several weeks of
deadlock, both sides resolved to seek the intervention of President Buhari to
help end the protracted negotiation.
It was learnt that the government’s team has made a fresh
proposal to adjust salaries of workers on grade levels 2-7 by 25 percent and
8-17 by 10 percent.
Senator Ngige, who linked the spate of banditry attacks
across the country and agitation by groups such as the Indigenous People of
Biafra (IPOB) to unemployment and joblessness, said federal government is
determined to address it and to set the indices right.
He said that the President was committed to recreating the
middle class in Nigeria.
"We have seen the symptom called unemployment which are
very visible. When you hear about Boko Haram, that is one of the symptoms when
you hear about banditry and IPOB, it is one of the symptoms of jobless people.
So, for me, the president has decided that we must fight unemployment.
"We have to fight because the indices are terrible and
that does not call for cheers. We have to decide and wear our thinking cap and
take our country away from the doldrums.
"He is committed to lifting at least 100 million people
out of poverty and the only way to do that is for our economy to improve. When
our economy improves, we would have dealt a big blow to poverty, social
insecurity and also insecurity of lives and property.
We have to make our
country a better place because we cannot run away from that. We all have a
collective responsibility," he said.
According to Ngige, his ministry will come up with many
programmes that will help the government to recreate the middle class that has
vanished from the country.
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