Nigeria

Minimum wage: FG now paying N30,000 to workers - Ngige declares

Monday, October 07, 2019 at 5:41 AM by Khadijah Thabit

- Chris Ngige, minister of labour, says the federal government has started paying the N30,000 minimum wage

- Ngige claims that the federal government understands the seriousness of the agitation for minimum wage by labour organisations

- The minister, however, says that the minimum wage is being hampered by negotiations

Nigeria’s minister of labour, Chris Ngige, has declared that the federal government has commenced payment of the controversial N30,000 minimum wage to workers.

Ngige said he understands that the minimum wage, as canvassed by the organised labour, is a reality adding that this is why the government is not taking it for granted.

In an interview with Daily Sun, Ngige said: “The N30,000 minimum wage is for the man at the lowest position in the job ladder, so we are already paying that.

“The public servants of those offices are already earning the new minimum wage. With the consequential adjustment, we have a problem with adjusting the wages of level 7 to level 14 workers,” he said.

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The minister claimed that the implementation challenge is with negotiations as he argued that the government and labour are yet to agree on the figures.

“And anything that concerns wages and negotiations, you should be ready for hard negotiations, especially when the economy is not too good," he added.

He, however, expressed optimism that the minimum wage challenge can be solved so that other grade levels can start benefitting.

Legit.ng had reported that the organised labour gave the federal government one week for its team to resume discussion on the negotiation of the consequential adjustment for workers in order to conclude the process.

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Also, Ngige had, days ago, declared that the federal government would have to lay off workers to be able to meet a wage bill of N580 billion needed to meet demand on the new wage.