Senate Speedily Passes National Minimum Wage Bill
The Senate on Tuesday speedily passed the National Minimum Wage Act 2019 (Amendment Bill).
The bill, which scaled second and third readings, just minutes after it was transmitted by President Bola Tinubu, was instantly passed by the upper chamber.
In its third reading, the Committee of the Whole unanimously approved the National Minimum Wage Bill.
Earlier on Tuesday, the President transmitted the National Minimum Wage Bill to the National Assembly for consideration and passage.
The President separately wrote the Senate and the House of Representatives requesting expedited consideration of a bill for an Act to amend the National Minimum Wage Act, 2019 to increase the National Minimum Wage from ₦30,000 to ₦70,000.
The President also asked the lawmakers to reduce the time for periodic reviews of the national minimum wage from five years to three years, as well as other matters.
Last Thursday, Tinubu and the leadership of the Organised Labour agreed on ₦70,000 as the new minimum wage for Nigerian workers.
The truce between the government and labour sides followed a series of talks between labour leaders and the President in the last few weeks after months of failed talks between labour organs and a tripartite committee on minimum wage constituted by the President in January.
The committee, which comprised state and federal governments and the organised private sector, had proposed $62,000, while labour insisted on ₦250,000 as the new minimum wage for workers who currently earn ₦30,000 as the minimum wage.
Labour had said $30,000 was unsustainable for any worker due to the economic vagaries of inflation and high cost of living, which followed the President’s removal of petrol subsidies.
Despite its initial insistence on ₦250,000 as the new minimum wage, Labour accepted the President’s offer of ₦70,000 last Thursday.
The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, said Labour accepted ₦70,000 and rejected a proposal by President Bola Tinubu to pay ₦250,000 minimum wage on a condition to increase petrol prices.
He also said Labour agreed to the ₦70,000 offer because the minimum wage won’t be reviewed once in five years anymore but once every three years.
About six weeks after the President announced in his Democracy Day speech on June 12, 2024, that he would send an executive bill on the new national minimum wage for workers to the National Assembly for passage, the wage bill finally arrived.