Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, says the
Buhari administration is a labour friendly government, which is
determined to put smiles on the faces of Nigerian workers before 2019
elections.
Ngige stated this when he alongside the Chairman of the National
Minimum Wage Negotiation Committee, Ms Amma Pepple, addressed State
House correspondents on the outcome of their closed-door meeting with
President Muhammadu Buhari.
Ngige and Pepple had briefed the president on the progress so far
made by the Pepple’s committee, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on
Friday.
According to the minister, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, will on
Sept. 18, preside over the meeting of the Economic Management Team,
which will be solely dedicated to the contentious issue of minimum wage.
He said: “Next week we have an economic management team meeting
on Tuesday, specially dedicated to the issue of national minimum wage
to be chaired by the Vice President.
“For anybody to say that this government is stalling or playing
games will be uncharitable, because, we have done what we are supposed
to do.
“We have the interest of workers at heart, we have not
retrenched anybody, there is no embargo on employment, there is no
embargo on promotions, we are paying backlog of promotional arrears, we
are backing backlog of transfers and repatriation and the rest of them
and we are giving them houses under FISH and the rest of them.
“So this government is a labour friendly government and we must
put smiles on their faces before the next election; we are labour
activists we don’t want to turn our backs on them.’’
People, a onetime Head of Service of the Federation, told the
correspondents that the committee would submit its report on or before
Sept. 30.
She, however, maintained that the committee needed a definite figure from the government.
According to her, everything is on course but we need a definite
figure from the government and of course, we have to carry the states
along.
“So, we need those figures so that we can conclude on the figures to include in our report.
“At least, I expect our report to be ready this month. We are submitting our report to Mr President this month.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the Nigerian Labour
Congress (NLC) had on Wednesday issued a two-week ultimatum to the
government to conclude all negotiations on the national minimum wage or
risk industrial action.
But, while reacting to the threat by the organised labour, Ngige accused them of blackmailing the government