Minister of Finance and coordinating minister of the economy, Wale Edun has stated that the minimum wage demanded by the labour unions is unaffordable across the board.
Gatekeepers News reports that the minister made the statement on Sunday during an interview session on Channels Television’s ‘Sunday Politics’ programme.
Remember that organized labour had proposed N615,500 as the minimum wage that the federal government should pay Nigerian workers, due to the high cost of living.
The union declared an indefinite strike on May 31st. The strike is expected to commence on June 3, because the federal government refuses to increase the minimum wage from N60,000.
Edun urged the union to take into consideration, the affordability of the proposed minimum wage for states and local governments as well as the private sector.
He stated that by law, the government is mandated to set a new wage scale every five years. The minister said it is noteworthy that “it is a minimum wage, 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.”
The minister added that focus should be on the fact that once the minimum wage is signed into law, “everybody that falls into the category of having to pay the minimum wage must pay it”.
He continued “And so therefore, the affordability has to be taken into account. And also, we probably have to also take into account the fact that there are other ways of buffeting and supporting the cost of living of workers, other than that particular wage scale.”
In conclusion, Edun hopefully said that with goodwill from all sides, the country would reach a conclusion that is to the benefit of all Nigerians and the economy.
