…as petrol price hike wipes gain

…NACCIMA decries threat of imprisonment for defaulters

If signals coming from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation are anything to go by, civil servants on the payroll of the Federal Government started receiving the new minimum wage payment of N70,000 per month from Thursday, 26th September 2024.

This is coming over two months after President Bola Tinubu approved N70,000 as the new minimum wage on July 18, 2024.

This should ordinarily bring cheer. However, there appears to be little cause for cheer as the impact of the new N70,000 pay for the lowest wage earners in the country may have been cancelled out by the recent increase in the pump price of petrol from N617 to N897 per litre and the attendant high cost of goods and services, including transportation and food.

The wage increase is in actualisation of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the Federal Government and Organised Labour, raising the minimum wage for base level employees in the country from N30,000 to N70,000 per month.

The MoU was signed by both parties on Friday, July 26 in Abuja.

Spokesperson of the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Bawa Mokwa, said on Thursday that payment of the new minimum wage would start this month.

Mokwa assured that workers would begin to get notification alerts of their new minimum wage salary payment starting yesterday (Thursday).

Mokwa did not, however, state if the minimum wage would be paid along with arrears.

“Federal Government civil servants will start getting the new minimum wage from today (Thursday), this September 2024. What I can tell you is that the minimum wage salary payment is today I am not sure of the arrears,” Mokwa told Daily Post in an interview.

This comes after the Chairman of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, Ekpo Nta, on Tuesday confirmed that the government had approved the upward review of Consolidated Public Service Salary Structure (CONPSS) in line with the Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act, 2024.

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The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) said last week it would meet with the Federal Government on how workers could survive the recent hike in the pump price of petrol.

According to the labour movement, the current price of petrol has eroded the gains of the N70,000 new national minimum wage.

President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, who disclosed this at the opening ceremony of a two-day conference on “Minimum Wage Implementation Workshop, Southern Zone”, with the theme ‘Strategies for Effective Implementation of the 2024 National Minimum Wage Act, in Lagos”, insisted that organised labour was advised by President Tinubu to accept the N70,000 minimum wage as a condition to forestalling a petrol price increase.

He advised the government to address the excruciating hunger, poverty and frustration of Nigerians before things go out of hand, lamenting that Nigerians were really suffering.

On Thursday, the National President of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines, and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Dele Kelvin Oye Esq., commended the Federal Government’s decision to commence the payment of the new minimum wage of N70,000 to workers in the country.

He, however, expressed concerns over the threat of imprisonment for defaulters, describing the decision as unhelpful.

“While we expect state and local governments that have not yet implemented the new minimum wage to do so, we urge the government to engage with stakeholders, including the labour unions, in a collaborative manner to address the complaint of Labour regarding the alleged breach of contract on the increase in the price of fuel and the economic challenges facing businesses and workers,” Oye said in a statement.

The total number of federal civil servants as at 2022 was 720,000, according to the Bureau of Public Service Reforms. Some other estimates have put the figure at 1.2 million. When civil servants employed by states and local governments are added, the number of government employees across strata comes to about 5 million (October 2023 figures).

It was not, however, clear as at press time how many of the nation’s federal civil servants are on the base, bottom-line salary level of Grade-1 but this category of workers essentially encompasses messengers and cleaners.

Assuming that the total number of federal civil servants in Nigeria is 720,000 and that only 5 per cent of that number are on the base salary level Grade 1, it would then imply that the total number of workers on that level is 36,000 and that the Federal Government’s monthly salary commitment to them would come to N252,000,000 (N252 million) per month and N3,024,000,000 (N3.024 billion) per year.

If on the other hand the total number of Federal Government employees is actually up to 1.2 million and only 5 per cent of the number are on the base salary level Grade1, that would put the number at 60,000 and would imply that the Federal Government’s salary obligation to them would be N420,000,000 (N420 million) per month and N5,040,000,000 (N5.04 billion) per year.

While wages in the civil service were considered fair but not top of the range before trending inflationary tendencies, government employment was favoured by Nigerians for its comparative job security, health insurance and pension schemes, as well as the considered moderate eight work hour per day, from 8.00 am to 4.00pm which allowed for work-life balance as well as skill enhancement opportunities it afforded.