Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki has given his nod to a new minimum wage of N70,000 for civil servants in the state.
The governor, while commissioning the new Labour House in Benin City on Monday, said the new wage would come into effect on May 1st, 2024.
This is as the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC battles the Federal Government over increasing the minimum wage to match increasing national inflation and skyrocketing food inflation.
The inflation rate for March 2024 hit 33.2 per cent from 31.70 per cent in February, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS. Food inflation also rose to 31.7 per cent in March from 30 per cent in February.
The NLC and the Trade Union Congress, TUC, had demanded N615,000 as the new minimum wage for workers in the country.
The labour unions’ agreement was after President Bola Tinubu, through Vice President Kashim Shettima, on January 30, set up a 37-member panel at the Council Chamber of the State House in Abuja.
With its membership cutting across federal and state governments, the private sector, and organised labour, the panel was tasked with recommending a new national minimum wage.
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At the inaugural meeting of the panel, Shettima urged members to ‘speedily’ arrive at a resolution, and submit their reports early as the current N30,000 minimum wage expired at the end of March 2024.
