The new minimum salary of N40,000, according to Mr. Otu, is more in line with current events than with sentiments.
The governor of Cross Rivers State, Bassey Otu, has set a new minimum pay of N40,000 per month for state government employees.
The news was made on Wednesday at the 2024 Workers Day Celebration in Calabar, at U. J. Esuene Stadium, according to a statement from the governor’s spokesperson, Nsa Gill.
“The realities of the time rather than sentiments” dictated the higher minimum wage,
Mr. Otu reportedly added in the statement.
The new salary implementation is in keeping with the facts of the period rather than sentiments, due to the peculiarities of Cross River State regarding its thin finances, which are caused by low Statutory Federal Allocation and worsened by the unfavourable State GDP to Debt payment ratio.
Workers have been asked by the governor to be patient as they deal with a backlog of gratuities that dates all the way back to 2014.
The government is almost ready to finalize the necessary measures for the delayed payment of the retired workers’ outstanding gratuity.
Consequently, I am fully in favor of any measure that will help the workers. Providing workers with a decent salary is one example of such a measure.
“Since this is a season of sweetness that characterizes my administration, I want to make it clear that the government of Cross River State is prepared to make its employees happy,” the governor declared.
Starting salary
Mr. Otu’s decision makes him the second governor of a South-south state to do so unilaterally, adding fuel to the fire of the current minimum wage negotiations between the federal government and labor unions.
The new minimum pay for public officials in Edo State was announced by Governor Godwin Obaseki and was published in DIVINEJAM at N70,000.
To propose a new minimum salary for employees in the nation, President Bola Tinubu established a 37-man National Minimum salary Committee in January.
Despite holding public hearings across all six of the country’s geopolitical zones, the committee has yet not delivered a report to the federal government.
So, contrary to expectations, Mr. Tinubu did not unveil a new national minimum on May 1st.
Every five years, the minimum wage in Nigeria can be modified according to the law. A new minimum was supposed to go into effect on 1 April, and the present N30,000 was last reviewed in 2019.
However, it appears that some governors may have chosen not to participate in the national minimum wage committee’s expected proposal when they announced a new minimum pay for state employees without waiting for the committee’s report.