By Dennis Agbo

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress, TUC, in the south east zone have expressed different views on the amount that the new minimum wage being negotiated should be pegged at.

While the NLC said it prefers the new minimum wage to be N540,000; the TUC maintained a proposal of N447,000; with both organised labour unions concurring that the minimum wage law should be amended for reviews in every two years instead of five years as the law presently prescribes.

Submitting positions at the South East zonal public hearing organized by The Tripartite Committee on the National Minimum Wage (TCNMW) in Enugu, on Thursday, the TUC chairman for Enugu state, Comrade Ben Asogwa, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues in the south east, said that the increase in wage had become inevitable based on the present economic situation in the country.

Asogwa said “we can’t bear the suffering again, we believe that the needful should be done, we’re disappointed that the Governors are not here. We have seen that five years is a long time for the review and so we have proposed that the minimum wage should be reviewed in every two years.

“We are also saying that the law should reflect that any Governor who is not ready to pay the minimum wage law should vacate his office and not the fine of N250,000 as recommended by the law. TUC is looking forward to the possibility of for implementation of the wage and we can’t give a different proposal from what the national leadership of the TUC has made and so we affirm that the least we can take is N447,000 given every economic indices. The South East stands on it and is waiting for the President to append his signature,” Asogwa said.

The Enugu state chairman of the NLC, Fabian Nwigbo, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues in the zone, noted that it was not even all the states that implemented the old N30,000 minimum wage.

Nwigbo lamented that Nigeria’s minimum wage was less than eight percent of what are obtained in other Africa countries, stating that in 2019 when the N30,000 was proposed, prices of commodities and and fuel were lower than their present rates.

“Rice, Garri and other food items are now high and minimum wage is still N30,000. So we’re asking the leaders to consider the plight of Nigerians. In a family of six their breakfast cannot be anything less than N2,000 which translates to about N300,000 per month. If you include housing, social activities and other bills, one would be looking at over N500,000 per month. So it should be N540,000 per month as minimum wage.”

Nwigbo also stated that wage determination should remain in the exclusive list and asked that the local government councils and the state governments should always comply with the wage directives.

“Our representatives should impeach any Governor that violates the law and pensioners should be beneficiaries of the new wage,” Nwigbo said.