The Chairman, Kano state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Kabiru Ado Minjibir, has asked the state governors to reduce unnecessary spending and cost of governance and stop lamenting about the proposed new national minimum wage.
Inaugurating the NLC executives for the 44 local government areas of the state on Thursday, Comrade Minjibir appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to use his executive powers and over-rule “the non progressive governors to pass the tripartite committee recommendation to the legislature for action.”
He faulted the claims by some of the state governors saying they will not be able to pay N30, 000 as the new national minimum wage to their workers, blaming their reckless spending on governance and extravagant lifestyle as their major problem.
He said N30,000 is not a living wage for a Nigerian worker given the prevailing economic situation and appealed to the president to use his prerogative powers to bring an end to the lingering crises.
“N30,000 as the new minimum wage fairly translates to N1,000 per day including Saturdays and Sundays, and if you calculate N1,000 times 35 that is if somebody has the life and health to attend 35years of service you can see that 360 time 35 years is N12.6m; that is throughout the years of service of a worker he earns N12.6m, but do you know the salary and allowances of a senator per month? It’s about N13.6m. So if you total the entire N30,000 of a worker for 35 years, it is not equivalent to one month salary and allowances of a senator.
“With the recent pronouncement of some governors that they don’t have capacity to pay, we do not believe in that because we believe that if the governors can reduce cost of governance in their states, if the governors can reduce security votes, if governors can reduce political office appointees and other unnecessary expenses like using first class flights while travelling and overseas medical expenses they will be able to pay more than N30,000 comfortably.
He however commended Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano state over his expressed willingness to pay N30,600 as new minimum wage to the workers in the state.
Governor Ganduje who was represented by the state’s Head of Civil Service, Alhaji Auwal Mohammed Na’iya, while congratulating the new executives, promised to continue to work in harmony with labour organisations in the state for the benefit of the workers.
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