The Nigerian Labour Congress has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of supporting governors claim that they cannot pay 18,000 Naira Minimum wage because of the dwindling economy.
NLC in a statement by its factional President, Ayuba Wabba said that the President’s response when asked about the minimum wage during the Live Presidential Media Chat showed that he is supporting the governors.
NLC said “It was therefore discomfiting that President Muhammadu Buhari appears to have given tacit support to the governors’ gambit, in the course of his maiden presidential media chat on December 30, 2015.”
The Congress also alleged that the governors called for a reduction in minimum wage in order to divert attention from the minimum wage agreement which is due for upward review.
The statement read “given the massive support Nigerians gave President Buhari as a symbol and icon of change, they expectedly harbour tremendous expectations that his government will deliver on a number of areas and provide succour that has for decades eluded them. For the NLC as a vanguard organisation of the Nigerian working class, we wish to use the occasion of the New Year to highlight a few of these expectations and indeed also our fears.
“Instead of using our current economic reality as a basis for deep reflection on how to revive and rebuild our economy, our political elite have instead chosen to engage Nigeria workers in battle. This is symbolised in recent threats by the Nigerian Governors Forum to abandon the payment of the N18, 000 national minimum wage which was enacted into law in 2011, or in the alternative sack workers to join the army of the unemployed. Another threat against the poor masses of Nigeria is the vigorous advocacy by several representatives of the ruling class, their business elite collaborators, the World Bank and IMF, is that the Nigerian government should use the opportunity of the low price of crude oil to remove the subsidy on petroleum products. The argument, as we have heard over and over in the last 30-35 years, is that the money so freed from paying subsidy will be used to upgrade our infrastructure, provide educational and healthcare facilities among others.
“For us, the fall in the price of crude oil provides a unique opportunity for our country to go back to the basics; to diversify and make governments at every level to look critically at areas of its comparative advantage and concentrate efforts to make the difference in…
“In the same vein, our business elite and multinational companies are notorious for evading paying taxes. The federal and states revenue services need to step up identifying those that had not been paying taxes and get them to do so efficiently in the New Year. Government needs to impose property tax on the several hundreds of flashy estates and other structures in Abuja and several state capitals across the country. Some of these structures have laid unoccupied for years, making us to believe that they are properties developed with laundered funds…
“An issue of great concern to the working class in Nigeria today is that of the national minimum wage which is due for an upward review. The National Minimum Wage Act of 2011 established parameters for re-opening negotiations for a new national minimum wage, which is to be reviewed every five years. Such review would take into perspective the purchasing power of the naira and prevailing rate of inflation. As things are right now, with the sharp devaluation of the naira, the existing N18, 000 minimum wage equally declined in value, thereby worsening the cost of living for workers.
“It is however bothersome that the governors flew a reprehensible kite of minimum wage reduction in 2015. NLC did realise that this was a strategy to get us talking about retaining the paltry sum of N18,000 as minimum wage instead of calling for an increment. We had responded accordingly and made clear our resolve to fight against any attempt to reduce the minimum wage, which would be illegal, as would be efforts to curtail an upward review, in line with the provisions of the 2011 National Minimum Wage Act.
“It was therefore discomfiting that President Muhammadu Buhari appears to have given tacit support to the governors’ gambit, in the course of his maiden presidential media chat on December 30, 2015. Echoing the claim that states might not have the capacity to (continue to) pay a mere N18, 000 as minimum wage. For us in Congress, the position of the governors supported by the views of the Mr. President cannot be empirically defended. There is no state of the federation that cannot pay much more than N18, 000 as minimum wage if corruption and extravagance on the part of the public office holders are stamped out. If people are at the centre of states’ policies, which is of the essence for ensuring development, the focus should be on economic empowerment of the working people.
“This is also important for kick-starting the economy from its present comatose state by increasing aggregate effective demand, through their enhanced purchasing power. Further, experience has shown that there is no amount which the employers private entrepreneurs and particularly as government will not initially claim is too much.
“For example, during the 2-year negotiations which led to the 2011 National Minimum Wage Act, NLC and TUC demanded N52, 000 as minimum wage. Several states that said this was too much and they could not pay more than N32,000 would later still say that even N18,000 was too much. It equally has to be stressed at this point in time that the reviewing the national minimum wage upwards is a multidimensional necessity.
“The unemployment crisis in the country is assuming a frightening dimension as there is hardly any household in the country where there is not at least two to three long-term unemployed persons several years after they had completed their schooling. We will continue in the New Year to dialogue with government and its various agencies on how the government of President Buhari intends to actualise its programme or promise of creating three million jobs annually.’’
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