President Muhammadu Buhari has met all the 36 state governors with the sole aim of finding a new minimum wage figure that is acceptable to all the major stakeholders.
While the organised labour insisted on N30, 000 monthly with active backing of the organised private sector led by Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA), some of the governors have insisted on less than the negotiated N30, 000.
This comes as many of the state governors have expressed readiness to pay as individual government and not as collective.
Indeed, not many of the governors were present physically as many of them were represented by their deputies.
The meeting also lasted for about 30 minutes, which gave an indication that most of the disagreed areas may have been settled.
President Buhari, had on Nov.19, held similar meeting with representatives of Nigerian Governors Forum at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, where the same issue of national minimum wage was deliberated upon.
Representatives of the Governors forum, who met with the president over the issue then, included governors of Zamfara, Lagos, Kaduna and Enugu, while the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige was also in attendance.
The Amal Pepple Tripartite Committee on the Review of National Minimum Wage, had on Nov. 6, submitted its report to President Buhari where it recommended N30,000 as the new national minimum wage.
While receiving the report, the president expressed his commitment to ensuring the implementation of a new national minimum wage and pledged to transmit an Executive Bill (on National Minimum Wage) to the National Assembly for its passage within the shortest possible time.
However, the 36 state governors had since expressed reservation over the proposed N30,000 new minimum wage by the Amal Pepple committee, saying the state governments were not in a stable financial position to pay the new minimum wage.
The Chairman of the Governors’ forum and Governor of Zamfara,
Abdul’aziz Yari, had on Nov. 15 stated at the end of an emergency meeting of the governors in Abuja that payment of N30, 000 wage was not practicable by most of the state governments.
