The National Assembly has resolved to ensure that states, local governments, and the Organised Private Sector stop defaulting in the payment of the approved minimum wage.
The National Assembly may even consider seizing allocations of states and local governments that fail to comply with the new minimum wage, says a source who spoke anonymously with Saturday PUNCH, because he was not authorised to speak on the matter.
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This is as the National Assembly announced plans to include a clause that will provide clear sanctions for defaulters of the new minimum wage bill that will be passed after receiving the Wage Award Bill from President Bola Tinubu.
This was made known by the Senate spokesperson, Yemi Adaramodu, who explained that lawmakers would expedite the passage of the Wage Award Bill once President Tinubu sent it.
He also hinted that the President would send the bill after the National Assembly resumed from the Sallah recess on July 2.
He noted that arbitrarily passing the executive bill into law without a public hearing was inappropriate.
He said, “Labour represents the people. And, whenever you want to make an Act in the National Assembly, there is supposed to be a public hearing. The people have to appear and participate in the process of making laws. That is how citizens participate in their own governance. But if the citizens have not participated and you come up with a bill, then the National Assembly is not supposed to enact a law in vacuum. They are expected to look at the concerns of the citizens and what they want, because the lawmakers are the peoples’ representatives.”
Also reacting, a professor of Employment Relations and Labour Studies at the University of Lagos, Akeem Akinwale, said the ongoing controversy between the government and the Organised Labour was simply a political affair.
He said what the Organised Labour should be clamouring for was price control and reduction in the high inflation slashing the peoples’ purchasing power, as well as a drastic cut in the humongous salaries of public office holders in the country.
What is happening is purely political. The tripartite committee comprises government representatives, employers’ representatives, and the Organised Labour.
The reason President Tinubu made the statement is because the government representatives and employers’ representatives had agreed that they were not going beyond N62,000. Labour has not agreed with that proposal, but out of the three groups, two have agreed. So, I think it is on the strength of this that the Federal Government wants to go ahead to legislate on the new
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