By Funmi Komolafe

The Human Capital Providers Association ( HuCaPan), an affiliate of the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association ( NECA), held its annual general meeting in Lagos. Labour Vanguard took up the president of the Association, Mr. Neye Enemigin, on some current labour issues. Excerpts:

An incident happened recently in one of our banks. Hundreds of millions of Naira were  stolen from a bank, and one of the employees involved was somebody engaged  on contract basis. Do you know anything about it? Was the out sourcing done through one of your members?

No.

Generally what is your attitude to the banking sector and how it handles out sourcing especially for tellers?

Well, I think everything in banking should be core, and even tellers should be people who are in direct employment of the bank, because they are involved with a lot of cash and when you get this out-sourcing people and you pay them peanuts and you give them that kind of responsibility, more often than not there is no satisfaction. Therefore, they  can look elsewhere for money.

Security of tenure

If banks will out-source tellers, they must pay them well and give them security of tenure, that’s my opinion.

Do members of your association; Human Capital Providers Association of Nigeria (HuCaPan) engage in capacitiy training for people that are out sourced for  your clients?

We do. In fact one of the requirements from the minister of labour is that the people should be trained. One of the requirements for the recruiters  licence  and its  renewal is that they want to see your training policy and they want to see that the people are trained regularly. A lot of people who are in this business at the moment are not under our umbrella, but if you belong to our association, we keep emphasizing the need for training and re-training because that’s the only way you can do the job better and be proficient in the job.

It  has been observed that some of your members engage in counseling for people who are laid off, people who are retired. Why do you think this is necessary since your HuCaPan is not an organization for retirees?

If people are declared redundant or retired our members have a duty to counsel them. This is because sudden loss of job is something that can be traumatic. Therefore we train our people to be able to counsel people so that they know that losing a job is not the end of life.

You can come out from that if you take it positively. I know people who have left some jobs and got something else, they have excelled and they have done extremely well.

As an expert in human resource management, do you think the national minimum wage should be on the exclusive legislative list or on the concurrent list?

For me it should remain on the exclusive list. The reason is that labour in over 90 percent of the countries of the world is on exclusive list.

Two, minimum wage standards should actually be set  at the central level. Talking about minimum and the way it is structured in Nigeria all the sectors are involved. If you take the last one, the Federal Government was represented,  all the states were represented, the organized private sector, Nigeria Employers Consultative Association ( NECA),  Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Manufacturers Association of Nigeria ( MAN),  small and medium scale enterprises they were all represented to arrive at that minimum wage.

Labour initially demanded for N52,000  per month, but  stakeholders they came up with different proposition and the state governments  were able to say this is what we can pay.

I have the data, some said they wanted to pay  N30,000, N20,000  if not more. At the end of the day it’s like a basket. What do we do so that even small scale businesses don’t die because they have to pay minimum wage. That’s one reason why you have to have a minimum of  10  people. So,  if you are a barber you don’t employ up to 10 people, you don’t have to pay minimum wage. It must be a national minimum below which no one must pay. It’s the same thing in US; it’s the same thing in UK. In fact in the UK they have national minimum which is even based on age, if you are aged 18 there is a minimum you get.

If you are 21 there is a minimum. If you are 31 and above an adult there is a minimum, but it’s a national issue. I don’t think that it is something that should be removed from the exclusive to the concurrent. For instance if you say states  should be able to determine the minimum wage, what about companies, private sector?

If you have a company like Nestle, I worked in Nestle for so many years and you have workers everywhere, all over the country. Are you going to have different minimum wage for them? Maybe the one in Lagos according to the Lagos law, the one in Kano according to the Kano law, there will be confusion. So I support Labour on this issue that the minimum wage should remain on the exclusive list

Your members engage in outsourcing,  do you ensure that the clients pay the national minimum wage,  because it’s a law?

Yes! In fact that is one reason why we have the code of conduct. When you are making any proposal to a company, insist that people who work for you will not get anything below the National minimum wage. Within this year I’ve been offered three to four contracts, I didn’t take the contracts. People approached me in my company, we made presentations. They wanted to give us the job (Indian companies), and they said  this is what we are paying, one N12,000 another one  N16, 000. I told them that my company will not pay anything below N18,000  because that is the law.  I said if you are not  willing to pay N18,000 forget it and I don’t mind.

I know some quacks  have gone to  pick this job to pay N12,000 to  pay N15,000 but I won’t do. I am a professional”.