State governors under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum have said that they can
no longer pay the N18,000 minimum wage.
According to them, the minimum wage was imposed on them when oil sold for $126 as
against the present price of $41 per barrel.
This was one of the outcomes of the forum’s meeting held on Wednesday evening inside
the old Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The meeting ended in the early
hours of Thursday.
The NGF Chairman, Abdul’aziz Yari of Zamfara State, said the way out of the situation
was the diversification of the economy with attention to agriculture and mining.
The governor said, “We resolved that we must look at ways to enhance revenue
generation and at the same time look at ways to cut our overhead costs, more especially
the political office holders’ salaries and other overhead expenses.
“The situation is no longer the same compared to when we were asked to pay N18,000
minimum wage, when oil price was $126 (per barrel) and continued paying N18,000
minimum wage when the oil is $41, and the source of government expenditure is oil, and
we have not seen prospects in the oil industry in the near future.”
Supporting the NGF position, Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State told journalists that
there was no way the country could continue with a situation where expenditure was
more than income.
“We are faced with a situation where we either have to reduce cost through salary
reduction or downsize. All these we don’t want to do but prefer to have a roundtable
with the President, ministers and economists to look for means of getting out of this
problem,” he said.
Yari added, “We will diversify our economy in the area of agriculture and mining. But at
the same time, we should understand our situation where some of us (states) today are
taking N100m home (monthly allocation) and we have salaries of over N2bn to pay.
“We, therefore, agreed here to take this suggestion to NEC in our meeting on Thursday so
that we can be able to find ways to tackle this problem.
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