Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Mr Quadri Olaleye, has disclosed about 80 percent of state Governors in Nigeria have implemented the new minimum wage.
Last year, President Muhammadu Buhari signed the new minimum wage bill into law, raising the monthly pay of workers in the country from N18,000 to N30,000.
But some state Governors vehemently rejected this pay rise, claiming it was too high for them to meet because of shortfall in revenue.
Speaking recently in Abuja, Mr Olaleye commended the federal government for implementing the pay rise as well as some state governors, but urged others yet to do so to commence implementation.
“About 80 percent of the states have implemented the minimum wage and I want to salute their courage.
“We have a few states that have not implemented. For those ones, we have issued out letters of ultimatum to them and we are going to take action.
“When TUC issues an ultimatum, we follow it up and for the few states that have not implemented, I am sure they are ready for us.
“We are going to shut down the states and let us see how they are going to perform if they are not ready to pay the minimum wage,” Mr Olaleye added.
The TUC chief also called on the federal government to grant tax holidays to business owners in the country to enable them bear the economic effects associated with the outbreak of coronavirus.
According to him, this is a measure being taken globally during an economic crisis, as it had been done in France and some other countries so far.
He noted that the coronavirus outbreak had negatively impacted on the Nigerian economy, and as such, businesses too will have to bear their losses. He argued that putting this kind of measure in place would cushion the blow.
“The expectations of workers from the government is that the Nigerian government should assist the people.
“The government should also look at how it can cushion the effects for business owners, especially providing adequate financing, to enable them to continue to run their businesses.
“Budget some amount of money to rescue businesses, especially people in entertainment and transport sectors.
“Everything is not about taking away from businesses, in a situation like this, one of the ways you can encourage people is to give them tax holidays,” he said.
Speaking further, Mr Olaleye noted, “So we (TUC) are going to take a step towards that, to see how we can discuss with government to give tax holidays to encourage businessmen so that more people are not pushed into the labour market.”
