By Ifeanyi Ikechukwu
The Senate today passed a bill setting N30,000 as the national minimum wage. The decision followed a similar move earlier by the House of Representatives.
The agreement for the approval was reached on the submission of the report of Senate ad-hoc committee on minimum wage headed by Senator Alimikhena Francis today, 19th March, 2019 on the floor of the Senate.
After the approval, the upper legislative chamber requested that the Federal government should put forth a supplementary budget to cover the approved wage structure for consideration and implementation.
For sometimes now, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has been demanding for an increase in the civil service salary considering some factors militating against the general welfare of Nigerian workers.
While the minimum wage increase is exciting to many, most Nigerians are of the opinion that Nigeria workers don’t deserve wage increase. This according to Mathias Chukwunonso, was as a result of non commitment to assigned duties by government workers in the Country who always push for jumbo pay without doing anything.
On another ground of opinion, Veronica Samuel, a passerby, while speaking to Kaftanpost.com, took a divergent view. She opined that every labourer, according to biblical injunction, deserves their wages and must be paid as at when due and when upward review was necessary, it should be done without hesitation in order to motivate workers for maximum input.
The question is, will the current wage increase by the government not result to inflation that cannot be controlled in the Country?
