FG raises c’ttee on minimum wage
By Abdullahi M. Gulloma
Abuja
Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has said that fasting and prayers alone would not grow the country’s economy.
Osinbajo said this yesterday at a sensitisation meeting with civil servants on ‘Executive Orders – Ease of Doing Business’, held at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.
While stressing the importance of hard work as the nation battles recession, he said the nation’s economy would not grow by engaging in fasting and prayers all the time.
“No matter how long we pray and fast, our nation won’t grow until some of us decide to do the hard work that will make our nation work,” he said.
The Acting President also disclosed the need for Ministries, Departments and Agencies, to brace up for reforms that would clearly state their functions to avoid duplication of duties and also enhance effectiveness.
Describing the civil servants as drivers of the Executive Orders, Osinbajo stressed that everything that happens negatively in the process of doing business, instigated by agencies directly or indirectly, affects creation of jobs.
“Every time we postpone processes of businesses, we delay the prosperity of many. If you help others move forward, you will find help. Don’t see this as a government policy but a personal policy.”
On the need to consume made in Nigeria products as contained in the Executive Orders, Osinbajo said in the coming months, the country’s rice would be able to compete anywhere in the world.
While calling for improved remuneration for civil and public servants to encourage motivation, Osinbajo said the present administration “knows what it means not to earn enough and be owed salaries.”
He said the country had some of the best civil servants in the world in terms of knowledge, regretting, however, that the implementation of government programmes and policies still remains a challenge.
“Our civil service is not just the largest in Africa but the best educated, and we must prove that we are not just bigger but better. The public service has power to change the social, economic and development story of a nation. Every generation owes the next generation a debt, and it is true when they say the future is in our hands.”
He, therefore, called on the civil servants to be up and doing in the daily discharge of their duties, saying, “every time we say come back next week for something we could do today, we postpone the prosperity of that person and the nation.”
FEC okays minimum wage committee
Meanwhile, the Federal Executive Council (FEC), has approved the establishment of a 29-member tripartite committee to address agitations by the organised labour for the review of the country’s minimum wage.
The approval came against the backdrop of several calls by both the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), for an upward review of minimum wage from N18, 000 to N56, 000 to enable workers meet up with the current economic realities in the country.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC meeting yesterday in Abuja, Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, said the decision was taken following report of a technical committee on the matter.
He stressed the need for all stakeholders to thrash out all issues involved in view of the persistent call by the organised labour for the review of minimum wage and the injection of the proposal by employers, under the umbrella of Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA).
The tripartite committee would be chaired by a seasoned Nigerian technocrat to be appointed by government, with six state governors as members.
Also speaking, the Minister of Interior, Lt.-General Abdurahman Danbazau (retd), said the Acting President had directed that a proposal for decongestion and expansion of prisons as well as establishment of six “half-way houses” across the country, be presented to the National Economic Council (NEC) for more input.
He told journalists that the current prisons in the country were 100 years old, stressing that the deplorable prison conditions were worsened by the fact that 70 per cent of the inmates were awaiting trial, some for as long as 11 years, with five per cent of the remaining 30 per cent “ on death row.”
He said the plan also “targets the expansion and relocation of congested prisons as some states have agreed to provide adequate land for that purpose, especially Akwa Ibom, Kano and Lagos states.”
The minister further said the one half-way house would be established in each geo-political zone to prepare inmates for reintegration into the society, shortly before their release.
