As workers earnestly await the implementation of the minimum wage, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige has promised to end the disagreement on the consequential adjustment and salary relativity. Ngige, who made the promise to Labour Writers in Abuja on Wednesday, said that the disagreement was responsible for the delay in the implementation of the new minimum wage.
The minister said that the decision to end the disagreement was to avoid the burden the backlog of arrears, the new minimum wage, would pose to state governments. “If you remember, a committee was set up and I was a member. When we left, the Permanent Secretary took our place and was negotiating with the Joint Negotiating Council on the consequential adjustment. “The states are waiting for that, and it is not proper for us not to fast-track that negotiation so that even the states will not have too much backlog to pay when the consequential adjustment is concluded.
“We have on our own budgeted for it in the 2019 budget and we are going to also budget for it in the 2020 budget. We are concerned about the states because some of the states are not proactive like us. “So, the sooner we conclude at the Federal level, and the Joint Negotiating Councils in the states takes it from there and negotiate with the states, the better for everybody,’’ he said.
Ngige said that another negotiation was important to be able to ascertain the number of states that would be able to be to pay the backlog. He said that it was the determination of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to fast-track the negotiation on consequential adjustment.
