FG to set up committee to negotiate new minimum wage with labour unions

President Muhammadu Buhari is set to give the go-ahead for a 29-man committee and organised labour to negotiate a new national minimum wage for workers, minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, has said.

Ngige said a meeting was held on Tuesday between the government and labour unions to finalise the report of an earlier constituted technical committee.

The minister made this known on Friday after a meeting of the technical committee.

He said the next stage was to constitute the minimum wage review committee which will work with the report of the technical committee.

“When the national minimum wage committee finishes its work, it will go to the National Assembly because all national minimum wage issues are issues that are on the exclusive list. So it is within the ambits of the National Assembly in accordance with the 1999 constitution as amended,” he said.

“The meeting was the final conclusion meeting of the Federal Government and Labour technical committee on the issue of the review of minimum wage and the prescription of the palliatives.

“The committee is supposed to put up a framework for the composition, functions and establishment of a minimum wage tripartite committee to review the hitherto existing 2011 minimum wage as well as prescribe to government the areas of palliatives that will enable the economy cushion the effect of the increase in the pump price of petrol.

“The committee has finished its work and we held a conclusion meeting to finalise our report and this we successful did. This committee will now take this technical report and hand over to the main committee of Labour and government.

“It may be sometimes next week if everything goes normal, and we have started consulting on the day.

“Once they receive the report, the committee will adopt the technical report or make some amendments and then submit it to Mr President, and based on the report, the President will constitute a national minimum wage tripartite committee.”

The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) have demanded N56,000 as the new national minimum wage.