Jumbo Salary: NLC Seeks Inclusion of Workers
08.20.2008


The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has demanded the inclusion of workers in the new jumbo pay recently approved for legislators by the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMFAC).
A statement issued by President of the Union, Abdulwaheed Omar said workers were equally entitled to such increament.
"The fresh 100% per cent increase in the emoluments of legislators and local government chairpersons and councilors is worrisome. We are concerned by the rather high margins of this and frequent increases in the emoluments of political office-holders.
"This fresh increase has hideously distorted the reasonable relativity that had historically existed between the salaries of elected office-holders and public employees. Therefore, there is need to restore this relativity by fundamentally adjusting the salaries of public employees", he said.
According to Omar "this increase will invariably add to the already bloated cost of maintaining public office-holders, which now constitute a huge drain on the development process. Given Nigeria's current level of development and the need to ensure prudent use of resources, the nation can ill-afford the massive cost of running government, much of which go into the allowances of office-holders"."The NLC insists that the prevailing adverse economic circumstances in the country exert even more serious negative impact on workers. Therefore, the system should be able to accommodate even higher margins of increase for workers, who are suffering untold erosion of the value of their income. Workers should not be left out of the process of review of wages and allowances, since they suffer even more. What is good for Political Office-Holders is good for Workers", he noted.

Source: http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=120202