The House of Representatives on Tuesday 29th January 2019 passed the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Bill, 2019 after considering the report of its ad-hoc committee. The Bill seeks to repeal the National Minimum Wage Act, 1981 and re-enact a National Minimum Wage Bill, 2019 which among others provides for a five-year period for the review of public workers salaries.
It will be recalled that the Bill scaled second reading in the House of Representatives on Thursday 24th January 2019, after the House received the President’s letter transmitting the National Minimum Wage Bill for consideration, following its approval by the National Council of State.
Presenting the Ad-hoc Committee report, Deputy Speaker Yusuf Lasun (APC: Osun) stated its resolve to raise the national minimum wage from the N27,000 proposed by the Executive to N30,000 for both federal and state workers to reflect the tripartite committee’s recommendation, which was earlier set up to look into the issue of minimum wage. However, he mentioned that the Ad-hoc Committee had increased the penalty for failure to pay the minimum wage from N5,000 to N75,000 after deliberations. The report presented by the Deputy Speaker who had also chaired the Ad-hoc Committee set up to assess the New Minimum Wage Bill also indicated that it had reflected on the contributions of stakeholders who attended its public hearing on Monday 28th January 2019 before arriving at its findings which the House eventually adopted.
The Bill had scaled second reading in the Senate last week, before its adjournment of sitting till 19th of February 2019, after the Presidential/National Assembly elections.
