The Minister of Labour and Employment Chris Ngige has said that the minimum wage proposed by the Federal Government was arrived at based on facts.
Punch reports that Ngige said this in a statement released by the Press Director at the Ministry, Samuel Olowookere. He said:
We need to arrive at a figure which the employers can afford to pay as an employee cannot fix a figure for the employer. Rather, it must be based on mutual agreement by the tripartite partners.
It is not a function of moving motions or voting at the National Tripartite Negotiation Committee that the figure must be as the organised labour appears to make it look.
There is absolutely therefore no need to heat up the polity. The government’s proposed new minimum wage figure is clearly based on critical facts and indices incapable of causing disequilibrium in the economy.
The Federal Government has previously announced a proposed minimum wage of ₦24,000 for federal workers and ₦20,000 for civil servants who work for states.