President Bola Tinubu has urged state governors to start paying the wage award pending the new minimum wage.
The president said the payment of the wage award would reduce the hardship of the economy on the people noting that if the states had implemented the wage awards, it would provide much-needed relief without causing inflationary pressures.
Speaking in Minna at the flag-off of the agricultural mechanization revolution for food security and the commissioning of the remodelled domestic terminal of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Airport in Minna, the President stated that all states need to adopt the wage award saying that the National Executive Council would also adopt it.
He said: “If all of you, the sub-nationals have been paying the wages award, pending the determination of the new salary wage. Let all the states start paying the wages award. Whatever they are taking now plus the wage award would relieve the public.
“Please, I am not giving an order, I am appealing to you states, start paying the wages awards, let everyone start paying it. It is a relief to the people. The mechanism is the fact that it won’t be inflationary if we announce the new salary wage in a few weeks or months, they would have gotten used to the basic wages of N30,000 plus the wages award, and it will have a dampening effect on the market. Please get sub-nationals together and NEC should adopt this.”
The President assured that the student loans and other economic measures would soon commence as steps are being taken by the government to relieve the people of hunger.
“The student loan programme will commence, there will be unemployment benefits for our graduates, and the social security programme for the elderly and vulnerable will commence, we are fine-tuning all these areas. We will relieve people of hunger.”
(THE NATION)
