Will President Buhari Increase The Minimum Wage? Read What NLC are Saying

From all indications, the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration
may be reluctant to increase the minimum wage of federal civil servants.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Thursday dismissed as misleading, speculations that talks between it and the Federal Government on new national minimum wage had collapsed.

Comrade Ayuba Wabba, President of the NLC said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, that the talks had not even started.

According to him, the government is foot dragging on the issue. He said that the tripartite structure that should consider the modalities for the implementation had not been inaugurated.

“Uptil now, government is still dragging its feet on talks about the minimum wage; the tripartite structure has not been put in place.

”He said that the speculation that talk on minimum wage had collapsed was misleading, adding that the talk had not even started.

“The point we are making is that we have only agreed on the structure, but the structure has not been formed.

“We have agreed on the membership and the structure of the negotiating team which is going to be tripartite, so this is the point that we are now.

“But at the last meeting of the tripartite team which was held a day after the Sallah break, it was agreed that at the next meeting, all these issues will be sorted out.

“What happened was that government could not form a quorum at the last meeting of the palliative,” Wabba added.

According to him, apart from the Minister of Labour Chris Ngige and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation – Babachir Lawal that were at the meeting key ministries were absent.