TheCable

Chris Ngige, minister of labour, says the federal government will decide on a new minimum wage on Monday.

Ngige made the disclosure after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa in Abuja on Friday.

He said an “enlarged meeting of all key stakeholders” in the government circle at both federal and state level had been scheduled for Monday.

The minister said a decision would be taken at the end of the meeting and a draft law would be transmitted to the national assembly on the new national minimum wage law.

“I have come here to consult with the vice-president and Mr. President. On Monday, the economic team will meet and the governors are supposed to come so that the federal government will brief them on what is on the ground and we will see what they will be able to put to us, because the government side is still three tiers: the federal, states and the local governments. The Federal Government is the leader,” he said.

“So, we are inviting them to come so that we will listen to them again, tell them what we are doing and what we intend to do, because they even have members on that committee.

“So, on Monday we will have a very useful discussion before the tripartite committee will come and submit its report.”

On labour union’s announcement of November 6 for another round of strike, he insisted that the “no work, no pay” policy is not new.

He said what the government was doing was just to re-echo it.

“The issue of no-work, no-pay is not a new thing, it is an existing law passed by the National Assembly in 2004 and assented to by Obasanjo,” he said.

“The law protects both the employers and employees. We are just re- echoing it. It is not anything punitive and new, it has been around since Obasanjo.”

The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has been at loggerheads with the federal government over a demand for an increase in the minimum wage.

The congress has threatened to embark on a nationwide strike from November 6, if the minimum wage, currently N18,000, is not reviewed upward.

The presidency has said there might be a stalemate between labour and government if the N24,000 proposed by the federal government is not considered.