President Bola Tinubu will on Thursday announce his decision on new national minimum wage for workers in the country.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, on Monday.
Idris said the president would be meeting with the organised labour on Thursday before deciding on an amount to be forwarded to the National Assembly.
According to the minister, the Federal Executive Council, FEC, deliberated on the national minimum wage and would invite the organised labour for a meeting this week.
He said the president was not averse to increasing the national minimum wage but was being careful not to plunge the country into an unimaginable inflation.
Recall that the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and Trade Union Congress, had in a meeting with the president last week Thursday, July 11, insisted on N250,000 as acceptable minimum wage for workers in the country.
Prior to the meeting, NLC head of Public Affairs, Benson Upah had hinted that the organised labour would insist on nothing but less than N250,000 as national minimum wage.
“We are going to the table with our demand of N250,000 even as the cost of living has since moved up. We have been very reasonable and patriotic,” Upah had said.
The labour unions and the federal government have been engaged in series of meetings over minimum wage, with both parties disagreeing on amount payable to workers.
While labour had insisted on N250,000, considering the harsh economic situation in the country, especially rising cost of food items and transportation due to removal of petroleum subsidy, the federal and state governments had insisted on N62,000, urging the organised labour to thread softly in their demands to avoid soaring inflation.
For further negotiations on the issues, the president invited the labour leaders to a meeting in furtherance of his promise to hold more consultations with stakeholders on the minimum wage saga.
