For the next six months, Nigeria’s low-grade worker shall receive an additional N25,000.00 , being a provisional wage increment to reduce the hardship caused by the removal of fuel subsidy in the country.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu made the announcement on Sunday in his nationwide broadcast on the occasion of the 63rd Independence anniversary of Nigeria.
He said the increment would be carried out without causing undue inflation.
The president revealed that the decision was taken based on the talk the federal government had with labour, business and other stakeholders.
His words: “Based on our talks with labour, business and other stakeholders, we are introducing a provisional wage increment to enhance the federal minimum wage without causing undue inflation. For the next six months, the average low-grade worker shall receive an additional Twenty-Five Thousand naira per month.”
Tinubu who said he was not unaware of the hardship that had come with the removal of fuel subsidy, promised that Nigeria and Nigerians would be better for it at the end of the day.
This is as he called on Nigerians to continue to endure, stressing that his government was doing everything possible to make things better for them.
“I am attuned to the hardships that have come. I have a heart that feels and eyes that see. I wish to explain to you why we must endure this trying moment. Those who sought to perpetuate the fuel subsidy and broken foreign exchange policies are people who would build their family mansion in the middle of a swamp. I am different. I am not a man to erect our national home on a foundation of mud. To endure, our home must be constructed on safe and pleasant ground.
“Reform may be painful, but it is what greatness and the future require. We now carry the costs of reaching a future Nigeria where the abundance and fruits of the nation are fairly shared among all, not hoarded by a select and greedy few. A Nigeria where hunger, poverty and hardship are pushed into the shadows of an ever fading past,” he said.
He added: “There is no joy in seeing the people of this nation shoulder burdens that should have been shed years ago. I wish today’s difficulties did not exist. But we must endure if we are to reach the good side of our future.
“My government is doing all that it can to ease the load.”
Giving the outline of the path his government has been taking to ease the tension in the country, Tinubu said in addition to the provisional increase in wages, his government had set up an Infrastructure Support Fund for states to invest in critical areas, as a way of developing the grass roots.
The states, he said, had been given funds to provide relief packages against the impact of rising food and other prices.
He stated that in order to make the nation’s economy more robust there would be a lowering of transport costs.
He said to achieve that, the government had opened a new chapter in public transportation through the deployment of cheaper, safer Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses across the nation.
The buses, he explained, would operate at a fraction of current fuel prices, positively affecting transport fares.
Said he: “New CNG conversions kits will start coming in very soon as all hands are on deck to fast track the usually lengthy procurement process. We are also setting up training facilities and workshops across the nation to train and provide new opportunities for transport operators and entrepreneurs. This is a groundbreaking moment where, as a nation, we embrace more efficient means to power our economy. In making this change, we also make history.”
He also spoke on what his government was doing on the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
“I pledged a thorough housecleaning of the den of malfeasance the CBN had become. That housecleaning is well underway. A new leadership for the Central Bank has been constituted. Also, my special investigator will soon present his findings on past lapses and how to prevent similar reoccurrences. Henceforth, monetary policy shall be for the benefit of all and not the exclusive province of the powerful and wealthy.”
