Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, has urged the incoming government of President-elect Bola Tinubu to reconsider Nigeria’s N30,000 minimum wage.

Ngige, who was a member of the committee that negotiated the current N18,000-to-N30,000 minimum wage in 2019, stated that the country’s minimum salary should be reviewed every five years to reflect the current standard of living.

The minister, who appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday, also stated that he would include in his handover notes that the discussion about minimum wage should begin as soon as the new government is sworn in in May 2023, rather than when it is implemented in May 2024.

He stated that discussions would encompass the public, private, and state governments, and that the final bill passed should begin a year before it formally takes effect.

“It is a tripartite negotiation involving the public sector, the private sector, and state governments,” he explained. We included in that bill or legislation that the minimum wage will now be reviewed automatically every five years.

“So, from 2019 when it went into effect to 2024, it will be five years, but we also made a recommendation in our document that the discussion, the negotiation, should start one year from May 2024 when it is supposed to kick off.”

“So, I’m envisaging that as from May 2023, the government will empanel the new minimum wage review committee for the nation.

“In my handover note, which I will give to the transition committee and the next government, I recommend that the discussions begin as soon as possible in May 2023.”

Ngige also stated that the Federal Government has authorized a pay increase for civil servants to begin on January 1, 2023, and that the provision is already included in the 2023 budget.

The minister stated that the salary increase became necessary due to the country’s present economic situation, but that the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd. ), has yet to approve the percentage used for the increase.

“In the Presidential Committee on Salaries, we have done something for civil servants on the Consolidated Public Service Salary Structure and some corporations, MDAs on that CONPSS,” he said. CONPSS is the civil officer salary scale.

“We put a percentage for the President to approve, and it was approved at our committee level.” We stated that it would take effect on January 1, 2023.”