The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has called on government at all levels to block financial leakages to be able to pay the proposed minimum wage for Nigerian workers.
Mr Ayuba Wabba, NLC President, made the call during for the North-Central Zonal public hearing of the Federal Government Tripartite Committee on the new national minimum wage, held in Lokoja on Friday.
President Muhammadu Buhari set up a 30-man tripartite committee in Nov. 2017, to negotiate a new minimum wage for workers.
The NLC President suggested that corruption must be reduced at all levels of government, in order to pay the new national minimum wage.
Meanwhile, the Kogi government during the public hearing expressed its readiness to implement whatever amount agreed upon as the new minimum wage.
Gov. Yahaya Bello of Kogi, represented by his deputy, Mr Simon Achuba, said that the state government, however, looked forward to an acceptable and implementable minimum wage.
He called on the Federal Government to increase the distributable amount of the Federation Account to all tiers of government, especially the states and local governments.
Bello commended the committee for organising the public hearing, saying that it was capable of providing the committee with the opportunity to assess the problems confronting the public service in each state.
He lamented that the huge financial debt and backlog of unpaid salaries inherited from the previous governments had been a major burden on his administration.
He appealed to the Federal Government to consider granting such reliefs at regular intervals to enable states meet their obligation to workers.
Meanwhile, Mr Patrick Dambe, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Establishment, who represented the Plateau State at the hearing, decried the shortfall in its revenue.
Dambe said the shortfall had caused the state to be borrowing to pay salaries and pensions.
He, therefore, made a submission of three proposals to the committee which included payment of either N25, 000, N30, 000 or N57, 000.
He, however, revealed that any of the proposals would greatly affect the wage bill of the state government, which is currently over N2.6 billion.
He said that the other option before the state government would be to downsize its workforce.
He added that unless there was a corresponding increase in federal allocation and IGR in the state, it would be almost to pay new minimum wage as being contemplated.
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