President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Joe Ajaero, has said what federal and state government employees currently earn is best described as starvation wage.
Civil servants in federal and state government payrolls currently earn a minimum of N30,000 per month but a committee assembled by the Federal Government is currently fashioning a review of the wage policy.
At the North East Zoal Public Hearing of the Tripartite Committee of the National Minimum Wage which took place in Yola on Thursday, Joe Ajaero who chaired the public hearing, emphasised that the current minimum wage has long been made pitiable by galloping inflation.
“What they call minimum wage is now starvation wage,” the NLC president asserted, adding that an average worker spends all his minimum wage on transportation alone and is left helpless about other needs.
He added that the fate of workers had been dealt a deadly blow by the naira which he said had fallen badly at the mercy of the fast-rising dollar.
Explaining that the aim of the zonal meetings on minimum wage is to hear the views of Nigerians, he cautioned that the public hearing should go hand in hand with what he called ‘market hearing’.
He explained that market prices of goods must be factored into how much is eventually accepted as national minimum wage if such minimum wage is to endure.
Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State who also attended the North East Zoal Public Hearing of the Tripartite Committee of National Minimum Wage, said it had become clear to everyone that Nigerians are groaning.
“People are suffering. We are not talking as people in the opposition. The suffering is evident everywhere in the country,” Bala Mohammed said.
He, however, acknowledged the Federal Government for initiating the attempt to review the national minimum wage
“We praise President Bola Tinubu for the courage to set up this committee. Not many will accept this as a task that must be done,” the Bauchi State governor said.
The North East Zonal Public Hearing which took place at the Banquet Hall of the Government House in Yola, was attended by delegates from the six states of the North East, namely Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, Yobe and the host state, Adamawa.
