By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The House of Representatives on Tuesday, January 29, 2019 approved the new national minimum wage bill forwarded to the parliament by President Muhammadu Buhari few days ago.
In the document, which is expected to be transmitted to the President for his assent, the minimum amount the lawmakers said a worker in Nigeria should earn is N30,000.
This is N3,000 short of what the National Council of State (NCS) suggested last week, which is N27,000 monthly.
After the council’s recommendation last week, President Buhari sent an executive bill to the National Assembly for the approval of a new minimum wage.
Upon receipt of the document, the green chamber mandated one of its committees to look into the bill. Yesterday, the panel held a public hearing to get inputs of different stakeholders.
At the hearing, labour said it will not accept anything short of N30,000 recommended by a tripartite committee set up by federal government on the subject matter.
Today, the committee presented its report to the House of Representatives and the lawmakers considered it clause by clause.
At the moment, the Senate is not sitting until February 19, 2019, when the presidential and national assembly elections would have taken place on February 16.
When the upper legislative chamber resumes for plenary, the lower chamber will expect the Senate to concur with the recommendations before sending the amended National Minimum Wage Amendment Act 2011 back to Mr Buhari for assent. By this time, the new act will have N30,000 as the new national minimum wage instead of the present N18,000.
