Minimum Wage: We Either Review or Downsize, Says Yari.

The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and the Governor of Zamfara State, Alhaji Abdulazeez Yari, has said that the state governors are left with the option of either reviewing the N18,000 national minimum wage or downsizing their work force, given the nation's economic reality. Yari, who spoke to State House correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday, said most states of the federation do not have enough internally generated revenue (IGR) to supplement their monthly allocations from the Federation Account in order to meet their financial obligations.

The NGF last week issued a communiqué indicating the inability of the states to sustain the N18,000 minimum wage due to low oil prices which had impacted Nigeria’s earnings. But in a quick riposte, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) declared that it was ready to take on any of the states that reviews the minimum wage and advised the governors to cut wasteful expenditure in order to meet their obligations to workers in their states. The threat by NLC forced some states such as Rivers, Edo and Ekiti to back out of the decision taken by the NGF, with some stating that they shall continue to implement the minimum wage.

 

SOURCE: Thisday – Pg. 1