Wale Edun, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy has said that the minimum salary proposed by labour unions is expensive across the board.
The minister appeared on Channels Television’s ‘Sunday Politics’ broadcast on Sunday.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have frequently suggested N615,500 as the federal government’s minimum wage for Nigerian workers, citing high living costs.
On May 31, the groups launched an indefinite strike, set to begin on June 3 due to the federal government’s refusal to raise the minimum wage from the proposed N60,000.
However, Edun stated that the labour union must assess the affordability of the proposed minimum wage for states, local governments, and the private sector.
He stated that under the law, the government must establish a new salary scale every five years.
According to the minister, “It is a minimum wage, but it is not a wage”.
Edun said:
“You are not setting a wage for federal government workers, for example. You’re setting a minimum figure that states, local governments, private sector, and small businesses must pay, to the extent that they have the requisite number of workers.”
“There can still be small-scale businesses; they would have to pay that and it is a fixed figure, not a scale.
“So, there are elements of how we have set the minimum wage in the past, particularly what they call the consequential adjustments, which, given what labour is asking for today, would be unaffordable across the board.”
“And so, therefore, the affordability has to be considered. And also, we probably have to consider the fact that there are other ways of buffeting and supporting workers’ cost of living, other than that particular wage scale.”
