The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, has pointed out that most governors on the 37-Member Tripartite Committee On Minimum Wage are failing to adhere to the proposed base pay structure.
This revelation comes as Vice President Kashim Shettima inaugurated the committee at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The Vice President emphasized that the formation of the committee is a strategic move towards ensuring a decent living wage for workers, in line with the National Minimum Wage Act of 2019.
With this Act set to expire soon, the committee’s role in reviewing and proposing new wage structures is crucial. 
Ajaero in an interview on Channels TV said “Most of the governors in the minimum wage committee are those who are not paying minimum wage or paying them in breaches.”
“The governors who are in full compliance with the minimum wage are not adequately represented, so whatever made the federal government bring in those who are not compliant or compliant in breaches to form the bulk of the membership of the minimum wage committee from the state government that will unfold with time.”
Asked to name certain states that have failed to implement the minimum wage, Ajaero said, “A state like Zamfara, I don’t know how much Borno and Bauchi are paying, there is a minimum wage law which criminalises the non-compliance of the minimum wage
“And the Nigerian state has not tried to enforce these laws, others are just enforcing them in breaches. Take Anambra State for instance, Anambra state pays N30,000 for the least paid, and by the time they graduate I challenge anybody from Anambra to prove that even a permanent secretary is earning up to N170,000 or N180,000.”
The NLC president, still speaking on economic matters as they relate to the country’s dependence on the dollar as its means of transaction, said the FG has turned a blind eye to it.
He said, “The issue of the dollarization of the currency is clear and the FG is not doing anything about it.
”We are worried about it but there is nothing we can do since the Nigerian government has chosen the dollar as a formal currency that will benchmark all they are doing.”
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