Minister of Labour and Employment in Nigeria, Chris Ngige stated this on Friday while briefing State House correspondents on the meeting he had with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
“As we enter the New Year government will make some pronouncements in that direction,” Ngige said when asked to give a timeline on government plans to increase worker’s salaries to cushion the effect of inflation in the country.
“I briefed and we are doing some review within the Presidential Committee on Salaries. Discussions are ongoing. The doctors are discussing with the Ministry of Health; insurance people in the public sector discussing under ASSIBIFIE.
“There is a general calmness, and hopefully within available resources, government can do something in the incoming year.”
He said that the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission is mandated by law to fix salaries, wages, emolument in, not only in the public service but also in the private sector.
“If you want their assistant and you are in the private sector, they will also assist you. They have what is called the template for remuneration for compensation.
“If you work, you get compensated; if you don’t work you are not compensated. So, they have the matrix to do the evaluation.
“So, they are working with the Presidential Committee on Salaries”, chaired by the Finance Minister; I’m the co-chair, to look at the demands of workers.
The Labour Minister said he also discussed labour issues with the president as the year is coming to an end.
“You know the year is coming to an end, and we have to look at our 2022 exhaustively. On the part of my ministry, we had to discuss labour issues and what we were able to do.
“First and foremost, we looked at the unemployment situation in the country and what we have achieved and what we have not achieved.
“Unemployment is high; various policies we have. We have to tell him the successful ones.
“I also gave him a briefing on productivity vis-à-vis the various industrial disputes we had in 2022.
“ It’s a year we can a year of industrial disputes, starting from the February ASUU strike which was joined by other sister unions in the university system, and even crippling research institutes.
“Thereafter, strikes from various unions, including the medical doctors association and the youthful wing of Resident Doctors Association, JOHESU, which is also the Joint Health Sector Union, asking for wage increase.”
Ngige pointed out that asking for wage increase could also be understandable because of what inflation has done in the economy and what the attendant cost of living has been workers especially in the public sector.
Ngige also commented on the eight months outstanding salaries that the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, is demanding for its members, following government’s insistence on the no-work-no-pay policy.
“ASUU has not pronounced anything on their salaries anymore because it is one of the issues that was referred to the National Industrial Court for determination, whether a worker who is on strike should be paid in violation of Section 43 of the Trade Dispute Act, which says when you go on strike, the consequences are these:
“Number 1, you will not be paid; you will not be compensated for not going to work to enable your employer keep the industrial or his industry afloat.
“That money should not be given to you; that compensation should not be given. It is there in Section 43 (1).
“The second leg to Section 43 also says that that period that you’re on strike will not count for you as part of your pensionable period of work in your service.
“That leg, government is not yet touching. The leg of no work no pay has been triggered off by that strike.
“So, we are asking the court to look at it. The matter is out of the hand of the executive now and in the hand of the judiciary.
“ASUU has also put up a defence in court, asking the court yes, we went on strike but we did that for a reason.”
He said the matter is left for the National Industrial Court to decide.
