Minimum wage: New law to sanction defaulting states coming – Senate

Minimum wage: New law to sanction defaulting states coming – Senate  

 

The National Assembly is proposing a legislation to compel all the 36 states of the federation to adhere strictly to the new minimum wage figure that will be passed into law.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Publicity, Senator Yemi Adaramodu (APC, Ekiti South), stated this during an interview with newsmen in Abuja, on Friday.

But immediate past governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has aligned with state governors that state governments should be allowed to pay what they can afford.

President Bola Tinubu is expected to forward to the National Assembly a new minimum wage after the negotiation committee has presented their proposals to him.

While the Federal Government team has proposed N62,000, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) are insisting on N250,000.

But the 36 states governors under the umbrella of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) have rejected the FG’s proposal, saying if implemented, some states would have to borrow to pay salaries.

However, Senator Adaramodu said the proposed legislation would be enacted to ensure that states which do not comply with the new figure are sanctioned accordingly.

He said, “We are going to do a watertight Bill that we are proposing that the President will sign it to ensure that it is strictly adhered to as a law.

“Once it becomes law, we are going to make it watertight, and don’t let us just speculate what is going to be the ingredient that the federal government would be putting into the bill that will be brought by the executive to be submitted to the National Assembly.

“When it comes, whatever is there and whatever is not there, we are going to ensure that it’s going to be watertight; that it’s going to be obeyed by all. And from that, again, when we are talking of minimum wage, is it about federal government alone?

“Because it seems that it is a fight between the Federal Government and labour. That’s the way everybody is looking at it. So we keep mentioning the Federal Government, we keep mentioning the President Tinubu and labour.

“But like I said, the National Assembly is going to do this law seriously watertight that either the state or subnational or organised private sector that does not comply, there is going to be sanction for it.”