CHAIRMAN of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, has advocated an hourly minimum wage for workers in the country, saying it will recognize performance and stop government from paying for indolence in the civil service.
Oyedele in a recent television programme said he believes that the minimum wage should be linked to productivity. He suggested “rethinking the structure of the minimum wage”, while proposing that it should be calculated based on hourly work.
Oyedele also mentioned that civil servants should strictly be allowed to engage in other types of work, in addition to farming, while working for the government, as long as it does not take their attention away from official duties.
“My view is that we need to use this opportunity of the minimum wage to have a rethink about our minimum wage structure. First and foremost, I do think it should be calculated per hourly. And we need to relax some of the rules in the civil service, that is the dos and don’ts. It should not just be limited to farming.
“You should be able to do more than one job provided that there’s no conflict and you can give the minimum hours to the government,” Oyedele said. According to him, without productivity and output, even a N1 million minimum wage would soon lose value and be equivalent to N30, 000.
He emphasized the need for measurable productivity standards for workers, which would help boost government revenue overall.
“There should also be conversations around measurable productivity. Imagine for instance if you’re able to measure the productivity of civil servants on behalf of government. And we have a structure that says the government cannot pay you a minimum wage that is less than the productivity that you have. What that will do for all of us is that civil servants will then start focusing on productivity because it drives their minimum wage.
“Otherwise, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much we pay, even if it’s N1 million per month, if it’s not supported by productivity and output, give it about 2 months, the N1 million will look exactly like N30,000 today,” Oyedele added.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have repeatedly demanded an increase in the minimum wage from N30, 000 over the past year. The labour unions proposed a minimum wage of N459,000, citing this amount as necessary for a worker’s survival given the current economic realities of the country, but last week succumbed to a N70, 000 minimum wage.
The Tinubu government stated that it could not sustain their demand, saying it was unsustainable and would result in N9.5 trillion annually.
