Ensure N30,000 new minimum wage kicks-off Jan, OPS tasks FG

LAGOS—THE Organised Private Sector, OPS, yesterday, pleaded with the Federal Government to ensure that all legal processes on the N30,000 minimum wage were concluded before December 31, to ensure that full implementation commences in January 2019.

President of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, NECA, Mr Muhammed Yinusa said this after a meeting of NECA’s governing council in Lagos.

Yinusa said: “Without sounding like a broken record, you are all aware of the issues that the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage faced and the intrigues that almost made their deliberations deadlocked. We have shared our perspectives and advised Government on what should be done and we are glad that those recommendations as regards steps and ways to avert the threatened strike action were taken.

“We had informed Government that there is no clime in the world where the outcome of the National Minimum Wage would be gladly and widely accepted by all stakeholders in the economy. Though minimum as it is supposed to be, it is not uncommon to hear outcry of inability to pay from one quarter or the other. “While the claim of inability to pay could in fact be real, the expectation, however, is for each and every employer in the economy, including the government, to focus inward on its business or system and effect the necessary wholesale restructuring and financial re-engineering that will enable it comply with the laws of the land.”