Senate Passes N18,000 Wage Bill

The proposed National Minimum Wage of N18,000 Tuesday received the legislative seal of the upper chamber of the National Assembly, as senators unanimously  passed the bill “for an Act to Amend the National Minimum Wage Act to Provide for a Revised National Minimum Wage into law.”

  Subject to the concurrence of the lower legislative chamber, the House of Representatives and the expected assent of the President, the least paid worker in the public sector will henceforth take home N18,000 at the end of each month.

  The bill, which was given an expeditious passage as the Senate suspended Order 79 of its standing rules to allow for its second and third readings on the same day, jacked up the old minimum wage from N7,500.

  The bill also covered private sector employees, as it stipulates in Section 2 (1) that “As from the commencement of this Act, it shall be the duty of every employer to pay a wage not less than the national minimum wage of N18,000 per month to every worker under his establishment.”

  The Act  also provides for a revised national minimum wage and also stipulates a realistic penalty regime for violations of the provisions of the Act.

The senators, who expressed support for the wage increase also canvassed thye removal of the minimum wage from the Exclusive Legislative List so that workers all over the federation can enjoy the new minimum wage at the same time.
Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over yesterday’s plenary, said the new wage will alleviate the sufferings of Nigerian workers.

  He said, “We have responded appropriately to the yearnings of our workers whom we are representing in this chamber. Today is a happy day because we have shown that we are conscious of the sufferings of our people. This country is rich enough to cater for everybody if we avoid the avarices of some few people.”

  Ekweremadu, however urged workers to be more responsive in paying taxes to enable government fund the new wage increase, saying, “The need has come for us to pay more tax to support the new wage.”

  Senate Leader, Senator Taslim Folarin, who led the debate on the bill called for the amendment of the Constitution to give state governments the rights to legislate on wage increment.

  He said, “I recommend that a more pragmatic approach should be evolved in future to address the subject of wage increase. There is need to alter the Nigerian Constitution by delisting of the subject of minimum wage from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list to enable both the federal and state governments free hand in negotiating wage increase matters separately with their workers which will further strengthen our fiscal federalism.”

  Also contributing, Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba said workers deserve more than N18,000, noting that wage increment must correspond with standard of living.

  He said, “Nigerian workers deserve it if you look at the wastage of government. It is also time for revenue commission and the salary and wages commission to index wages against cost of living. It should not be all the time that we should always come to the National Assembly to increase wages.”

  In his contribution, Senator Smart Adeyemi (PDP, Kogi) who also argued  in support of the new wage, said it will be unrealistic for some state governments to claim that they cannot pay the new wage.

“I want to disagree that it will be practically impossible for some state governments to pay. We have more resources to pay, states in Nigeria are richer than some of the states in West Africa, so they can pay.

“The problem is mismanagement of resources and corruption. People divert money from this country to abroad for selfish gains. I hold the strong view that N18000 is not enough. I am also of the view that we should have a bill to review the minimum wage annually because of the rate of inflation is on annual increase,” he said.

-Punch

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Posted by admin on Feb 22 2011. Filed under Legislature, Senate, Top Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry