New Minimum Wage backdated to April 18, 2019

Workers can now heave a sigh of relief as the Federal Executive Council, FEC, fixed April 18, 2019, for the take-off of the new national minimum wage of N30,000.

Minister of Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, disclosed tis while briefing State House Correspondents in Abuja, saying that the April 18, 2019, effective date conforms with the date the Act was signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, chaired the meeting in the absence of his boss who is in Sochi, Russia, attending the Russia-Africa Summit.

Apart from the April 18, 2019, the FEC also directed the National Wages and Salaries Commission to communicate the template of the approved consequential increases in salaries to state and local governments as advice.

The council also directed that the payments should be made by the end of December 2019.

Ngige told the correspondents: “Today, we sent to the Federal Executive Council our report and the reconciliation that was done last week between the organised labour and one federal government of Nigeria on the issue of the new national minimum wage which has been fixed at N30,000 a month and the consequential adjustment that were made to salaries and wage structures of the public service thereto.

“You will remember that last week when I briefed the press, I told you that the salaries and wage structure are compartmentalized into four class – health, armed forces service, research institutes and the paramilitary.

“So, they have percentage increase in their wage structure, and for emphasis the 07 compartment received 23.2 percent rise; grade level 08, 20 percent; grade level 9, 19 percent; grade level 10-14, 16 percent, and grade level 15 and 17, 14 percent in the CONPPS which is the pure civil service structure and agencies earning the same wages as those in the public service.

“You have the CONRESS and CONTISS which is compartmental 2. They have 23.2 percent equivalent and 14-16, 10.5 percent; Police and other security agencies because they have had a pay rise, last year, they were consequentially adjusted to between 4 and 7 percent.

“Same goes for the paramilitary. They also have their consequential pay rise.

“So, FEC today approved for us that the financial implications worked out by the National Incomes and Wages Commission that the salaries adjustment should take effect as from April 18, 2019, the day the new national minimum wage Act came into being.

“Council also approved for us that the financial implication be worked out and the payment should be completed in or before December 2019.

“Council further directed that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning through the office of the Accountant General of the Federation should effect all these payments before 31 December 2019.

“Council further directed also that the National Income and Wages Commission and the Ministry of Labour and Employment should send the consequential adjustment table down to the states and local government as an advisory document for their information and guidance for their national joint public service status in their respective states because the national minimum wage is a national law.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Communication has been renamed and would henceforth be known as the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy.