Buhari Appoints Rewane As Head Of Minimum Wage Advisory Committee

As President Muhammadu Buhari unveils the minimum wage technical advisory committee to come up with modalities on  sustainable ways to implementing the minimum wages, with the appointment of Mr Bismarck Rewane, chief executive of Financial Derivative, as the head of the committee.

The President who assured of the readiness of the Federal government to pay the wages, inaugurated the committee on Wednesday before the federal executive council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday.

He said the committee would recommend “modalities for the implementation of the new minimum wage in such a manner as to minimise its inflationary impact, as well as ensure that its introduction does not lead to job losses”.

“The work of this Technical Committee will be the basis of a Finance Bill which will be submitted to the National Assembly, alongside the Minimum Wage Bill.

“I want to make it clear that there is no question about whether the National Minimum Wage will be reviewed upwards. I am committed to a review of the Minimum Wage.

“Also, it is important to explain that even though the subject of a National Minimum Wage is in the Exclusive Legislative List, we have been meeting with the State Governors because it is imperative that the Federal Government carries the State Governments along in determining any upward review of the minimum wage for workers.

“This is especially necessary considering the prevailing public sector revenue challenges, which have made it extremely difficult for some of the governors to pay workers as and when due.”

The President said that in it readiness to implement the proposed wages, the federal government has included the Minimum Wage in its 2019 Budget proposals that it sent to the legislature.

Buhari also revealed that the government had the resources to meet the new obligation of the minimum wages.

“However, we anticipate that after the new minimum wage has been passed into law we will be going into negotiations for salary review for all the workers who are already earning above the new minimum wage,” he added.

“It is therefore important that we are properly prepared to meet these demands.

“We must, therefore, look at ways of implementing these consequential wage adjustments in a manner that does not have adverse effects on our national development plans, as laid out in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

“The ERGP sets appropriate targets for levels of capital expenditure, public debt, inflation, employment, etc.”