With the enactment of the National Minimum Wage Act and take-off of implementation, the battle for the new wage has shifted to the states, TOBA AGBOOLA reports.
The presidential assent given to the minimum wage bill may have laid to rest several months of agitations and controversies over a new national minimum wage. However, another floodgate of struggles may have opened over its implementation by state governments. That is, the new minimum wage may not realise full-scale implementation without some disappointments.
While some governors are ready to pay the N30,000 minimum wage, some have spoken of low funds and opted to increase tax.
For instance, Enugu State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi said the state lacked the funds to pay the new wage, uring workers to pray for an improvement in the economy to boost the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state.
Ugwuanyi said: “In as much as the government will remain true to its obligations, I will tell you the nation’s economy is not robust.
“I have taken notice of the new national minimum wage as signed into law, but workers should pray for improvement in financial resources of the state.
“We will ensure that these issues are comprehensively and satisfactorily addressed in concert with other relevant government agencies and departments.”
Similarly, Ebonyi State Governor David Umahi said he would neither be the first nor the last to pay the new wage.
He said workers should prepare for an increase in tax, if they wanted to receive the new minimum wage.
“You see, this issue of minimum wage, I will not be the first nor the last to pay it, but I will pay. Civil servants and others should be prepared to pay tax in Ebonyi State,” he said.
It will be recalled that the Chairman, Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State, who canvassed the position of his colleagues in response to the report of the tripartite committee on minimum wage, said the governors were against the N30,000 minimum wage. According to him, the states are going through difficult times and, therefore, lacked the capacity to implement the new wage for workers.
He said the payment of N30,000 was impracticable and may lead to retrenchment of workers in the states.
Yari, however, said the states could only take up the challenge of paying the minimum wage, if Labour would agree to downsizing of the workforce across the country or Federal Government itself acceded to the review of the national revenue allocation formula as well as other measures that would boost the revenue profile of state governments.
The governors, in the heat of negotiations with the Labour movement, set up a committee headed by Kebbi State Governor, Atiku Bagudu, to assess the state of finances of most state governments.
The agitation by the Labour is being spearheaded by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), which rejected the governors’ position, insisting that states are capable of paying the new minimum wage if only state chief executives would allow the prudent management of resources.
However, analysts believe that the real hurdles facing the governors over the implementation of the N30,000 National Minimum Wage are more of political issues than economic.
They said governors should be ready to reduce their large number of political aides, cut down the amount spent on servicing political machinery and ignore certain political considerations to implement the new wage.
A Professor of Political Science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Jonah Onuoha, said lawmaking in Nigeria had been bedevilled by poor implementation.
Onuoha said: “Otherwise, how can you explain the fact that even the N18,000 that was approved many years ago has not been implemented and you are approving N30,000? While we commend the President for assenting to the bill to become law, the question is: how do you implement it?
“There must be a way to compel the state governments to implement the law; there must be a way the Federal Government will prevail on the states to implement the law. The institution is so weak that every governor behaves the way he wants without regard to the law.
“The Federal Government cannot compel the states to employ anybody but when you employ people, pay them according to the law. That is what we are saying, even if it means cutting down on their (governors’) lifestyles,” said Onuoha.
Executive Director, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, Adetokunbo Mumuni, said state governments had failed to set their priorities right.
Mumuni said: “Let me say straight away that at any level in the Nigerian polity, if priorities are ordered right, if we put our focus where it should be, there is no basis for any government not to be able to pay the new minimum wage. Look at what they pay their political hangers-on.
“You cannot say any of those governors do not pay more than N30,000 to political hangers-on. So, I believe that it is a question of cutting our coat according to our cloth and ordering our priorities right, then everything will be okay
He added, “The reason they (governors) will say they cannot pay is because monies are diverted for inanities and frivolities, rather than meeting the needs of the people of Nigeria. I don’t even know what they say they spend on security, especially when, from state to state, there are security challenges.
“You then ask yourself what the security monies they collect are used for. I believe that the issue of security votes is another nomenclature for mismanaging resources and I don’t think it is needed in the current dispensation.”
But a Professor of Political Science at the University of Lagos, Derin Ologbenla, warned that defaulting governors would have to brace for industrial actions with the attendant consequences.
Ologbenla noted that rather than depend on federal allocations to meet the workers’ remuneration, states must be innovative to increase their internally generated revenue.
The don explained: “The idea behind the N30,000 is that the prices of goods have gone up, the naira has been devalued and the workers are suffering in penury. Therefore, something has to be done.
“The government, Labour and owners of businesses met and negotiated the N30,000. Having been signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari, it is a law at the federal, state and local government levels.
“Now, any governor that refuses to pay will have himself to blame in the sense that there will be labour unrest in that state and the governor will not be able to achieve his aims and objectives. The N30,000 minimum wage is not even adequate for the workers.
“The prices of things have gone up; the governors who say they cannot pay must find a way of generating ideas, they must attract investors to their states.”
Ologbenla said the new minimum wage law had provided an opportunity for the governors to reduce their spending and channel their security votes to people-oriented purposes. He supported the call for the revenue sharing formula review.
“The security votes of each state can be better applied. How are the security votes utilised? They are not monitored or accounted for; they are spent anyhow.”
Also, responding to some of the comments by state governments on their inability to pay the new wage, Comrade Agnes Funmilayo Sessi, Lagos State Chair of NLC, said any governor that said he could not pay the new wage had failed the people and should resign.
She said: “Any governor that cannot pay the salary of the workers should resign. That means they have failed in their duties and they are incapable of holding that position.
“If they can reduce corruption and bogus spending, there is no state that will not be able to pay the workers the new wage. When they are electing them, did they promise the people that they will starve them?”
NLC President Ayuba Wabba punctured the excuses of the governors that their revenue profile cannot support the implementation of the minimum wage. He accused them of being extravagant.
Speaking with The Nation, Wabba, said governors who were not ready to implement the new national minimum wage should brace for confrontation with organised labour.
Wabba said governors should remember that they swore an oath to abide by the laws, adding that the national minimum wage is a law which they must implement.
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