Workers hoping for the implementation of the N30,000 new minimum wage in Lagos State this month will be disappointed as the Lagos State Government is not yet ready for the task ahead.
There have been rumours within the Lagos State Government Secretariat, Alausa, Lagos that the government was not ready to pay N30,000 minimum wage, settling for N27,000.
It was also rumoured that a meeting between the labour and Governor Akinwunmi Ambode on the new minimum wage was deadlock as the workers rejected government’s proposed N27,000.
According to rumours within the secretariat, the Lagos State Committee on the new N30,000 minimum wage failed to reach agreement on Thursday 9th May, 2019,.
The is said to comprise Ambode, incoming Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and representatives of the state’s Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and the Trade Union Congress, TUC.
It was gathered that the state initially proposed N25,000, which they later jacked up to N27,000, but the organised labour insisted on the amount signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari.
After hours of deliberations, it was agreed that the issue be suspended till after the swearing in of the new governor but that the state would pay the leave bonus for all categories of workers this month, with the hope of commencing the new wage in June 2019.
However, Chairman, Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, Lagos State Branch, Comrade Olamide Bamidele debunked rumours that the government had settled to pay workers N27,000, saying that no meeting had been held yet.
He, however, said the government tried to negotiate with leadership of the workers at a meeting in Abeokuta before Buhari signed the new minimum wage into law, but that the workers rejected such move.
He said the labour is awaiting the federal committee set up by Buhari to harmonise the new wage increase, saying that Lagos workers would negotiate with the state government base on the federal benchmark.
Bamidele vowed that Lagos workers would not accept anything below the N30,000 new minimum wage.
