Minimum wage committee has reached near consensus, says Uzodimma

Hope Uzodimma, governor of Imo state, says the tripartite committee on the minimum wage is close to reaching a consensus.

Uzodimma spoke on Friday after a meeting of the committee, which reportedly lasted for over 12 hours.

“We had a very fruitful deliberation, and of course you know it is a technical subcommittee of a committee,” he said.

“And at the level of the committee, we have reached near consensus, and by the time we go to the plenary, we will have a complete agreement, and maybe from there, the media can start their job.”

The governor said members of the committee have just finished with their various unit meetings and have now proceeded to the plenary to harmonise their decisions and come up with a figure.

“We’re still engaging the organised labour and I’m almost confident that a few minutes from now, after the plenary, we would have reached a concrete agreement,” he said.

On Monday, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) embarked on an indefinite strike over the federal government’s failure to meet their demand for a new minimum wage.

On Tuesday, organised labour relaxed the industrial action for one week to allow negotiations with the federal government on a new minimum wage.

The negotiations resumed on Thursday.

Labour had proposed N615,500 and N494,000 as the new national minimum wage, which the government said was unrealistic.

Meanwhile, governors under the aegis of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) have said the N60,000 minimum wage for workers is not sustainable.

The governors said many state governments would spend their entire allocation paying salaries, noting that there would be nothing left for developmental purposes.