Oscarline Onwuemenyi 11 July 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja – General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Dr. Peter Ozo-Eson, has called on Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to name a chairman for the Minimum Wage Committee and to direct all the parties involved to send their representatives to the committee to commence the process of negotiation of a new minimum wage in the country.
Ozo-Eson, who made the call in Abuja, criticised the refusal of the Federal Government to constitute the committee and described the delay in the setting up of the tripartite committee on the new Minimum Wage as scandalous.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, had announced on May 25, 2017, that the Federal Executive Council had approved the constitution of a 29-member tripartite committee for the negotiation of a new Minimum Wage in the country.
However, the government has not constituted the committee since the announcement by Ngige in May.
Ozo-Eson warned that the organised labour would be compelled to take a decision on the matter if the Federal Government continued with the delay in the constitution of the crucial committee.
He added that the absence of President Muhammadu Buhari from the country could not be an acceptable reason for the delay in the constitution of the panel as the country had an Acting President.
He said: “There is an acting President and therefore, he does not need to wait for the President before he sets up the committee. We expect that whoever needs to do what needs to be done, should do it and have the committee set up.
“All options remain open to Labour, you know in May, we had said that that needed to be done by May, it wasn’t done, but they then followed up quickly in June to say that Federal Executive Council (FEC) met and then approved and then approved. So if the FEC met and approved the process for setting up the committee, then all we needed to do then is to see the committee being set up “.
