Minimum Wage: We’ve Started Paying - FG •No, It’s A Lie - Labour

TRIBUNE

Written by Soji-Eze Fagbemi Saturday, 25 February 2012


A major controversy is raging over the payment of the N18,000 national minimum wage

by the Federal Government as labour leaders, on Friday accused the Federal Government of not implementing the new Minimum Wage Act.

But, the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu, said the government had indeed commenced the payment of the wage.

The labour leaders publicly confronted the minister on the issue at the commissioning of the Lagos corporate office of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) to signal the commencement of the Employees Compensation Scheme.

The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Abdu-wahed Omar and the President-General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Peter Esele, frowned at what they termed as the refusal of the government to pay the wage.

While acknowledging the efforts of President Goodluck Jonathan in ensuring the implementation of the Employee Compensation Scheme based on the Employee Compensation Act, Omar charged him to ensure that he extend a similar gesture to the implementation of the minimum wage.

He said it was surprising that the government had not paid the wage after the president had signed the enabling law.

“Those of us in the labour circle commend this scheme (ECS) because it is clear, purposeful and transparent.

“The Federal Government must also ensure that it is transparent in fulfilling all the promises it made to workers, especially in the payment of the national minimum wage,” Omar said.

Also, Esele, who had expressed serious concern over the non-implementation of the wage, said it was disheartening that it had not been paid to workers by now.

He, however, blamed this on the bureaucracy in the civil service, adding that Jonathan was amazed when labour complained about the non-imple-mentation of the new wage during one of their meetings over the fuel subsidy removal crisis.

Esele also stated that the president was surprised to hear that federal workers had not started receiving the wage when labour told him at one of the mee-tings.

“We want to hear today something tangible and significant on the payment of the new mini-mum wage from the minister,” Esele told Chief Wogu.

In a swift reaction, the minister said Jona-than had given a directive that the wage should be implemented fully.

He said the president had said that the implementation should begin in earnest and in fact stressed that the payment had begun at the federal level.

The minister added that from information available to him, some states had started implementing it, citing Lagos State and his home state, Abia State as two of such states.

He said the president was worker-friendly and would do everything to protect the interest of the workers, noting that his interest in workers’ welfare had shown clearly in the numbers of things already done by the president for the workers.

According to the miniseers, the urgency at which Jonathan signed the National Minimum Wage Act into law and the present Employee Com-pensation Act was a pointer to this fact.
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