A National Minimum Wage Bill transmitted to the National Assembly by President Buhari has passed second reading at the House of Representatives. In the letter addressed to the Speaker on Thursday, 24th January 2019, the President described the Bill’s objective as seeking to amend the prior National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act, 2011 and increase the National Minimum wage paid to Nigerian workers in public service from N18,000 to N27,000 per month.
Presenting the Bill at plenary, Hon. Idris Ahmed Wase (APC: Plateau), House Deputy Leader, stated that the Bill prescribed the National Minimum Wage and the legal framework for its seamless review periodically. Also giving contributions, Hon. Edward Pwajok (PDP: Plateau) commended the leadership and Members of the House for turning out to discuss the minimum wage. In particular, he drew attention to section 3 of the Bill which states that no employer of labour shall pay less than N27,000 to workers and increased penalties for defaulting employers. He stated that the section also gave rights to affected workers to approach the National Industrial Court where their right was breached. However, he noted that employers with less than 25 workers would be exempted from complying with the new minimum wage bill when passed into law.
Likewise, Hon. Pally Iriase (APC-Edo) reflected on the agreement reached by the tripartite Committee set up by the Federal Government on the minimum wage. For instance, he stated that although there had been concerns that some States would be unable to pay the N30,000 earlier proposed by The Nigerian Labour Congress, he stated the cost of governance could always be reviewed before urging Members to work on the Bill at Committee level to increase the minimum wage from the proposed N27,000 to N30,000 as the new minimum wage. This position was supported by Hon. Sunday Karimi (PDP: Kogi) who stated that the “so called increase in minimum wage” was a decrease when compared to the last time the wage was reviewed when the inflation rate was taken into account. . Furthermore, he stated that the government was capable of paying N30,000 but corruption had been the problem as it was ironical that some States were owing workers several months salaries while others were under paying despite receiving bail-out funds and the Paris Fund.
Following this, the Speaker has set up an ad-hoc committee headed by the Deputy Speaker Hon. Yusuf Lassun (APC: Osun) for further legislative input and mandated a public hearing on the Bill on Monday 28th January, 2019. The Speaker has urged the Committee to report its findings back to the House as it intends to pass the Bill, a day after the public hearing.
