financial constraints and other limitations, many states could not
afford it for now.
The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) said that the governors would
have loved to pay workers N30,000 as national minimum wage but for the
hard times.
Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, spokesman of the NGF, said this on Monday in Abuja.
The head of the media of the Forum
said that due to financial constraints and other limitations, many
states could not afford it for now.
He said that the clarification was important, following insinuation by the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) through an interview granted by its Secretary General, Peter Eson.
Bello-Barkindo
said that the insinuation by Eson in the interview that governors were
refusing to pay the N30.000 national minimum wage as demanded was
misleading.
Bello-Barkindo said that the governors had
offered workers a token increment of N22,500 from the current N18000,
after the submission of the report of the Tripartite Committee on Oct 6.
He also.said that the N22,500 was arrived at after extensive deliberations among all 36 governors.
He said the governors.also arrived at the
decision after outlining their financial capacities and liquidity,
considering the economic situation of the country and the states’ other
obligations.
“Governors also emphasised that N22,500 is
a “baseline threshold”, meaning that any governor who can pay more than
N22.500 is therefore free to go ahead and do so.”
He said that the governors had met the
President Muhammadu Buhari twice on the matter and presented their books
to buttress their point.
He said the governors, in their first batch
meeting, presented the financial standing of six states, where each
governor from the six geo-political regions in the country, was shown to
the President on the President’s request.
“All the states forwarded their books,
their revenues, both internally generated and their earnings from the
Federation Account along with their other sources of revenue for
examination.
“The president appeared satisfied with the governors’ position, thus the decision to set up a new committee.’’
Bello-Barkindo added that there had never
been a time in the country, when states had embarked on a more
aggressive revenue drive than they were doing today.
He also said that though the governors were
not under any obligation, by law, to show their books to the NLC but
they had at several times done so in their pursuit of the understanding
of the union.
Bello-Barkindo said that was done with a view
to letting NLC know that what it was asking for is neither realistic nor
sustainable, adding that yet, NLC remained adamant.
Bello-Barkindo said that since the last
meeting, mid December between the Governors and Mr President, economists
of the NGF had been working closely with the relevant departments in
all the states of the federation.
He said that this was also in addition to
looking into other ways of collating financial standing of states that
would help the President in ameliorating the situation.
“Already, revenue to states have dropped drastically while demands by competing needs keep rising astronomically.
“Last year alone, revenue to states
dropped from N800 billion when the Tripartite Committee was appointed
(November 2017) to between N500bbillion and N600 billion.by the time Ms.
Amma Pepple submitted its report in October 2018.
“Moreover, state governors are making
concerted efforts to improve on.education, health and infrastructure and
for this, would not therefore dedicate their states’ entire resources
to workers’ salaries alone.”
According to him, workers constitute less than 5 per cent of the nation’s population.
“In that regard, governors emphatically
announced, collectively, that no state would devote more than 50 per
cent of its revenue to salaries.
“To therefore insist that states must
oblige the NLC its demands, regardless of the economic gloom that stares
the nation in the face is a deliberate attempt to hold the nation,
especially the president, to ransom, this being an election year.’’
He said that most governors exhibited high
sense of responsibility and concern for the plight of workers by
ensuring that most of them were paid their December salaries ahead of
time.