Nigerian laborers have attested to getting the new minimum pay set by the Federal Government.
This was revealed in a separate statement released on Thursday by Tommy Etim, the deputy president of the Trade Union Congress, and Benson Upah, the spokesperson for the Nigeria Labour Congress.
Upah and Etim’s remarks coincide with the news that the Federal Government has started paying the N70,000 minimum salary, as exclusively revealed on Thursday.
In response to the revised minimum wage payment schedule, Upah urged businesses nationwide to follow the federal government’s lead.
Yes, that seems likely. We request that more organizations follow this lead,” he declared.
In a similar vein, Etim of the TUC stated, “FG’s committee on consequential adjustments previously produced a template, therefore there is no moral justification for anyone to delay the minimum wage’s payment. We now suggest that everyone else do the same and start paying the new minimum wage.
Additionally, a government worker who works in the Head of Government Service’s office but is not permitted to talk acknowledged that he has been paid the new minimum wage for September 2024.
I received an alert on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. “I hope the arrears arrive as well,” he said.
A few federal employees attested to receiving an extra N40,000 on top of their prior pay as a result of the modification.
This implied that more than 1.2 million workers covered by federal payments have started to get paid the new minimum wage.
In accordance with the Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act of 2024, the government has approved the upward revision of the consolidated public service salary structure, or CONPSS, as verified by Ekpo Nta, the chairman of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, on Tuesday.
This came after the new minimum salary of N70,000 was approved by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on July 18, 2024.
The Senate enacted the new minimum wage measure into law after Tinubu gave his support.
The minimum wage under President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was N30,000; this represented a 100% pay increase to N70,000.
The implementation of the pay increase for Nigerian workers coincided with skyrocketing costs for goods and services, with headline and food inflation rates reaching 32.15 and 37.52 percent in August 2024, respectively.
