The Chemical and Non-Metallic Products Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (CANMPSSAN) at the weekend accused some governors of threatening to abandon the new minimum wage if their states’ statutory allocation is not reviewed upward by the Federal Government.
Its President, Comrade Abdul Gafar Mohammed, said the union was disturbed that workers were being subjected to another round of negotiations after the new minimum wage had been okayed.
“In the labour movement, we are disturbed and concerned with the continuous over politicisation of the minimum wage issue, which before it finally became law was unfortunately turn into a complex debacle with state governors threatening not to pay.
“They have given conditions that unless the revenue sharing formula is reviewed upwards, they will not comply with the law.
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“We have had to use everything at our disposal to get the bill sent to the National Assembly and had to deploy even greater pressures in getting to different arms of the National Assembly to pass the bill into law,” he said.
Mohammed urged employers in the private sector, who still pay below the approved benchmark, to comply with the new law.
He urged the Federal Government to confront headlong the hydra-headed monster of inadequate power supply that had crippled the nation’s industrial , social and economic growth.
He said: “The privatisation of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) would have been meaningful, if the needful were done. It could have been profitable if those companies that bought over the electricity sector have thought of building their own power plant from the scratch.”
Mohammed said unemployment continues to be the number one problem in the nation, adding that the challenges of national development is to manage the economy in such a way as to promote job-led growth rather than the present situation of jobless growth.
“In our country, many graduates and skilled youths are roaming the street in search of job. All the promises by the government to create jobs have not yielded any dividend. It is a shame that the government is politicking with the unemployment by releasing spurious figures of jobs they have created only on the pages of newspaper,” he said.
