Hmmmmmm 18,000 minimum wage cannot be paid by Governors. see their excuse below:
State governors under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors’
Forum have said that they can no longer pay the N18,000 minimum wage.According to them, the minimum wage was imposed on them when
oil sold for $126 as against the present price of $41 per barrel.This was one of the outcomes of the forum’s meeting held on
Wednesday evening inside the old Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The meeting ended in the early hours of Thursday.
The NGF Chairman, Abdul’aziz Yari of Zamfara State, said the
way out of the situation was the diversification of the economy with attention
to agriculture and mining.The governor said, “We resolved that we must look at ways to
enhance revenue generation and at the same time look at ways to cut our
overhead costs, more especially the political office holders’ salaries and
other overhead expenses.
“The situation is no longer the same compared to when we
were asked to pay N18,000 minimum wage, when oil price was $126 (per barrel)
and continued paying N18,000 minimum wage when the oil is $41, and the source
of government expenditure is oil, and we have not seen prospects in the oil
industry in the near future.”Supporting the NGF position, Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo
State told journalists that there was no way the country could continue with a
situation where expenditure was more than income.
“We are faced with a situation where we either have to
reduce cost through salary reduction or downsize. All these we don’t want to do
but prefer to have a roundtable with the President, ministers and economists to
look for means of getting out of this problem,” he said.Yari added, “We will diversify our economy in the area of
agriculture and mining. But at the same time, we should understand our
situation where some of us (states) today are taking N100m home (monthly
allocation) and we have salaries of over N2bn to pay.
“We, therefore, agreed here to take this suggestion to NEC
in our meeting on Thursday so that we can be able to find ways to tackle this
problem.“And we are looking at coming together to discuss with Mr.
President and his team – with governors, technocrats and experts in the economy
– to see how we can tackle our troubled situation. We are working harder to
deal with it.”The governors also called on the Federal Government to
ensure that MTN Nigeria paid in full the N1.04tn fine imposed on it by the
Nigerian Communications Commission.
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