The Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo-led Economic Management Team is to hold a special meeting on Tuesday to deliberate on a new minimum wage regime.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, disclosed this to State House correspondents on Friday.
Also at the State House to brief President Muhammadu Buhari on the minimum wage issue was the Chairman of the Minimum Wage Negotiation Committee and former Head of Service of the Federation, Ms. Amma Pepple, who said a report on the new minimum wage would soon be submitted to the President.
Ngige called the allegation that the government was playing game with the minimum wage uncharitable, and promised that the new minimum wage regime would be in place before the 2019 general elections.
He said, “Next week, we have an economic management team meeting on Tuesday, specially dedicated to the issue of national minimum wage and it would be chaired by the Vice-President.
“For anybody to say that this government is stalling or playing games will be uncharitable, because we have done what we are supposed to do.
“We have the interest of workers at heart; we have not retrenched anybody, there is no embargo on employment, there is no embargo on promotions, we are paying backlog of promotional arrears, we are backing backlog of transfers and repatriation and the rest of them and we are giving them houses under the Federal Integrated Staff Housing programme and the like.
“This government is labour-friendly and we will put smiles on their faces before the next election. We are labour activists and we don’t want to turn our backs on them.”
Pepple on her part said her committee would submit its report to the President before the end of September. She added, “Everything is on course but we need a definite figure from government and of course we have to carry the states along. So, we need those figures so that we can conclude on the figures we include in our report.”
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