The Nigerian Senate has approved the sum of N30,000 as the new national minimum wage.
This followed the submission of the report of the ad-hoc committee on new minimum wage headed by Senator Francis Alimikhena this morning Tuesday March 19th.
The upper chamber asked the Federal Government to submit a supplementary budget to cover the new wage structure for consideration and approval.
Speaking after passing the minimum wage bill into law, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, said
”Let me join our colleagues to commend the efforts of the committee. More importantly, let me commend the patience of Nigerian workers and the leadership of the Labour Union, who have over the years been calling for this minimum wage and have carried their efforts responsibly.
I want to commend the leaders of the organisations of the union. Let me also state that as government, we should ensure that at times like these, we should not wait for there to be strikes to do what is truly deserving for our workers.
I hope that with this minimum wage our workers will double their efforts to increase their productivity, so that we can also improve the general productivity of the country.
It is my hope that the implementation of this will start immediately”.