 Now, the trade union congress D.U.C. says it is designing a clause in the framing of a new minimum wage that was sanctioned by the government who failed to pay the revised minimum wage when approved. The T.E.C. president Festus Ossifo made this known on Fest Day. Ossifo said the current minimum wage of 30,000 Naira can no longer cater to the well-being of an average Nigerian worker, lamenting that not all governors are paying the current wage award which will expire by April. Five years after the minimum wage act of 2019 was signed by former president Mohamed Dupuhari, now the act is to be reviewed every five years to meet with contemporary economic demands of workers. He said the sanction will require that the federal or federation account allocation committee directly pay workers in states where government defaults on the payment of the new minimum wage when agreed on by labor unions, federal and state government as well as the organized private sector. In the wake of this, the latest from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics says their nation's public debt stock rose from 87.91 trillion Naira in the third quarter of last year to 97.34 trillion Naira in the fourth quarter of the year. In its Nigerian domestic and foreign debt report for the fourth quarter of last year released on Tuesday in Abuja, the NBS said the nation's public debt stock which included external and domestic debt grew by 10.73 percent on a quarter-and-quarter basis. It puts the country's external debt at 38.22 trillion Naira in the fourth quarter of last year, stressing that domestic debt stood at 59.12 trillion Naira so far. Also, other sectoral retreat organized by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources unwaste the build synergy for enhanced development in the oil and gas sector, the Ministry of State for Petroleum Resources oil, Heineken, the public sector, solution to Nigeria's numerous challenges lies in the petroleum sector. But just how true is this? Or keep an eye on all of these issues on the show today. Welcome to Business Insight and Plus TV Africa. I am Justin Akadone. Welcome back to Business Insight and Plus TV Africa. I have my guest right now, Mukta Mohamed, standing by to discuss all of these issues with me. Good morning to you, Mukta Mohamed. Good morning. All right, let's start with the issue of this minimum wage. The TEC, Preston, Festus, or CFO is calling for sanctions for states that are defaulting in their payment. He said the sanctions were required that the federal or the Federation Account and Allocation Committee, that ISFAC, directly pays workers in state where governors default on the payment of the new wage when agreed on by labor unions, federal and state government, as well as the organized private sector. But the thing right now, Mukta, is that this issue of minimum wage has been on for quite a while. We have been looking at it and it's supposed to be reviewed every four years. But you have followed all the high points on the committee meeting and several suggestions that have come out of them. Let's talk about this defaulting state, for instance. Some are not even able to pay the 30,000 there after all of these years. What happens right now with labor pushing for more than 300 percent increment at different public hearings? Some have said 60,000. Some have said 70,000. Even have gone as much as 700 to 300,000 there. So what do we do with all these present realities? Yes, and Justin, we need to look at the minimum wage constitution or whatever. The minimum wage, will I say, I'm looking for the English, but what I mean about the minimum wage, okay, the minimum wage benchmark. We need to look at states, ordinarily, every state needs to have its own minimum wage negotiation with the government, with their own labor congress in their own states. So that's what it means. The government is just about to set up a minimum wage and say that you will not pay below this level. Then the state governors will begin to look at it. It doesn't mean that the great level seven in Lagos will collect the same thing with great level seven in KB states, because the cost of living in these two states are different. That's how minimum wage are done in developed economy of the world. It's not a straight line graph that you say, oh, this was interred. This is the percentage. And again, they also will also look at that for the Nigerian labor congress saying that the government will not pay the defaulting state, will pay the workers directly. I think that is going too far, because that is not the meaning of the constitution. How do you work on that? How do you go about that? How do you see the state of default to pay the worker directly? So I don't think that we work, but that's part of the pressure the Nigerian labor congress will be putting on the government to make sure that the 14 states are able to pay the workers. Again, like I said, most states will have to negotiate their own minimum wage based on their own allocation, based on their own revenue, based on their own projection, because what we see is that at the end of the day, a lot of states seem to be paying just minimum wage and there's no development. The same workforce will not want them to be reduced. Sometimes the government will say, okay, we have to bring down dues and we have to let some workers go so that we'll be able to pay the wages and they'll come again and say, no, you must pay without even disengaging some workers. So it's an ongoing negotiation. The negotiation between the Nigerian labor congress, the trade union congress is for the government to put up a minimum wage. After that, I believe that the state governments will be negotiating with their various labor unions to have their own. And remember, because it is not constitutionally or because of a type of constitution we run, even if we are not practicing it to the fullest, the first president cannot enforce the state to pay the minimum wage reward of 35,000. You know, the last time he had a meeting with the governors, he has to appeal to them that he will appeal to governors to be able to pay. He appealed to them not mandating them or instructing them that you must pay. All right, Ben Mukta, you are an economist and you are aware of what's going on. Let me just play a bit of a devil's advocate here. You know, 60,000, 80,000, over 300,000. But we know what the issue is with the country with inflation and other economic indices and inflation is over 30%. And as it is right now, in your opinion, what would be a real minimum or living wage as it is that can really cater to some of these present issues that we are battling with? Justin, you know, I've talked about structural reform. And sometimes when we talk about minimum wage, we are only just looking at the salary. We are not looking at some of the structural reforms. Okay. Structural reform could come in the sense of a tax holiday for civil servants or a time being. Structural reform could come also with some allowances being paid to civil servants. This is structural reform that will be embedded in some of these negotiations. But all we think about negotiating, we think about negotiating of the wage must go up. Mainly the wage goes up. It's like they send a message to the market women and say their wage have gone up. So increase your price of your goods. So if you, if you, if I sit down here today looking at the current economic reality on ground, I will say, if you look at inflation, like you say inflation is about 31%, but you and I know that inflation has gone beyond that. So I think the Nigerian Labour Congress should be negotiating for a minimum wage of being realistic. Maybe you say minimum wage of over 100,000 for start-up point. And you could take it up at other structural reforms to measure that wage coming, leaving wage. Because when you talk about the minimum wage, sometimes if the minimum wage has to stand to that, if I start correct, it's about 18,000. And if the government say we have increased the minimum wage by 200%, how much is that? So you need to look at how much percentage you you are looking at because the government will come from the side. Most governments in the world work pay and buy inflational pressure. It's okay, inflation is 31%, okay, if that's the case, we are going to increase the minimum wage by 45% or whatever. But you know in our own cause, if you do that, I mean, you just move, they go post a little, but the cost of living is too high, especially when most of these workers have to pay other things like school fees, housing that are not given to them. But if they develop economy, some of these things are knocked off. You don't pay school fees. So you send your children to a good public school. But here, we know what the public school system is. So that's why we're talking about the structural inflation. So kind of the issue could also come with them telling the government that you need to make a public school very conducive so that our children will be going there and that will reduce the financial burden on us. Okay, before we leave the minimum wage dilemma and talk about the public debt and other matters very quickly, I need to understand maybe it's all in my head. But don't you think that the law for a minimum wage should be revised to review this wage issues maybe on an annual basis so that there will be like a representation of the true picture of things and also ensure that the issues like these don't just pop up and the government might seem so overwhelmed to handle all the exponential increment. For instance, I'm sure in the UK it is done on an annual basis. But for Nigeria here, it is done every five years. So what's your thought really? Just as in my thought is that ordinarily we need to set up a committee to begin to review the wages when you look at that things have gone hard. And it's normal for any sensitive government or a sensitive government to look at it and say look things are not the same. In the US and in the UK that you are talking about they don't have the national minimum wage committee that will not they don't have the minimum wage standing committee that will not sit down and say okay this is the wage it is all embedded that oh they base their wage on economic data when they look at the economic data inflation is high. They look at and the purchasing power because they have all this data. Some things just decide to increase the wages and sometimes like you said these wages are not all-time high like what we experienced by living in for the next five years. Sometimes these wages are maybe just five percent, sometimes just 10 percent but again that goes by with the inflationary data that mostly mostly until recently it was the highest in US history for over 50 years. The inflation doesn't go above maybe three percent, two percent until recently I went above 10 percent and at that what they did was to do a structural reform whereby in some states like they have to stop paying petroleum taxes they have to so those are the kind of reforms that and then some of the companies also increased their salaries of their workers and where when you move the tax petroleum tax and other you see that there were any more so that's why we are saying that as Nigerian Liberal Congress is negotiating a living wage they should more or less look at the structural wage so that these are not things that are eating up the minimum after you negotiated it already. All right let's leave the national minimum wage for a moment and look at other issues let's talk about our public debt. So far the latest data from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics says that the country's public debt stock rose from 87.91 trillion now which represents about 114 billion dollars in the third quarter of last year to 97.34 trillion now which is about 108 billion dollars in clear terms that's for the fourth quarter of last year. Just on a general basis how are we really doing in terms of our debt stock debt servicing and all of that? Well I think for debt servicing we should say we have been able to be paying if you look at what the GMO said they've been able to pay some of these debts so it's a good thing so that makes us a good credit us so a lot of companies a lot of countries who still want to give us debt so I say plus I'm certainly what I'm excited about this debt profile not that you're excited when you put on debt because there's a saying that they say no debt is a good debt no debt is a good debt some people say it's a good debt because you're putting it into productive ventures but no debt is a good debt because you still have to pay those debts so there's nothing good about that so so what I'm saying is that you look at the public debt I mean that the internal debt is about 66% for me that is good compared to the external debt of 38% if you talk twistedly that if external debt was 66% that will be talking with the current exchange rate will be talking an addition of almost almost 200% when it comes to internal debt I think those are manageable because you could also begin to look at giving the coupon for to them that look you can you buy can we give you a coupon like what was done sometime ago by the then minister of finance and so you'll meet this bond and we'll pay you gradually based on an interest so that can work but when it comes to international debt you have to pay it and you have to pay that address so the debt profile is not something exciting but again it is what is there and when you look at the state that are in debt you look at legal state and well when you look at the economic activities I think they have they were within to pay off the debt because when you look at their revenue by the debt that they are owning you realize that they have all the capability to pay but sometime you have problem when you have some states that cannot can barely pay so when the labor is complaining about some still not be able to pay minimum with some still don't get the kind of allocation that they used to get because after dig dot on for some of these debt they have left with nothing sometime with just nothing to do without that is so but again we should be happy that the president that also done very well in terms of took the poll step they took the poll by the home and they removed the minimum wage from from I mean remove the first subsidy so what we've seen that a lot of state are any more money but again it's not reflective on the people so that is why I will appeal to Nigerians instead of always putting pressure on the top on the center which also begin to look at our state government and our and our local government because it seems to have and more more more revenue since the advance of a president but not in a good to power all right as we round off now Mokta I just want to find out if you agree with this postulation that the solution to the nation's problems lie in the petroleum sector well that's the what the minister of state for petroleum resources Hayekin Locobiri seems to believe because in my opinion we've always been talking people have been talking about you know diversifying and not really so focusing on you know oil and gas sector I know you know FinTechs and other sectors are quite really doing well right now in the country but do you really think that petroleum sector is what or the panacea to all of the challenges that we have in the country well in the short term is the solution that's what I would say because it's the cash cow yeah it's the cash cow when you look at effects that we end in from other sector non oil sector even when the petroleum sector is producing less than maybe even 10% to the GDP seems to be the only one that brings in that effects so for the short term it is the king is the is the cash cow so we need to pay more attention to eat we need to make sure we wrap our production we need to make sure that we create the conducive investment environment to attract investors into that sector we need to deal with the insecurity in that sector we need to deal with oil tech also so for me I think yes in the short term but what other developed countries in the world have done is to use their main cash cow to be driven to develop other streams of income so for me I agree but I think we should not just stay there we should use that place as a springboard to people look other sector revenue end from from there so that we can have multiple multiple sources of revenue coming to our economy so I totally agree with it but it's in the short term using your cash cow to develop other streams of income Mukta Muhammad Mukta Muhammad is an international finance and economic analyst and he joined us now to look at all of them these issues concerning the minimum wage and our debt profile thank you once again for always doing justice to all of these issues thank you Justin have a pleasant weekend you too and that's the size of the show but I'll leave you with this one it's a focus on industrialization and it was done somewhere by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria many thanks for being a part of the show I am Justin Akadone Captains of industries organized private sector the United Nations industrial organization UNIDO and the federal government among others have converged on this whole the key theme here is setting the agenda for competitive manufacturing under the AFCFTA what Nigeria needs to know Otumba Francis may show you is the president of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria men he hits the ground running by lamenting the slow rate of industrialization in Nigeria and the challenges affecting the performance of manufacturers or the speakers will know that the AFCFTA can be achieved if stakeholders address the challenges affecting the nations we need to develop the right strategies and certain efforts to position our economy as a global manufacturing world of the african economy and then since from several parts of the world including China the United States Japan Germany South Korea after the portals of manufacturing sector immediate and resilient economy the AFCFTA is not just an agreement it is a platform for collaboration even beyond the worlds of Nigeria how do we reach for regional integration that will give us competitive manufacturing Nigeria must actively engage in regional and continental cooperation with the following steps the steps that will bolster regional integration we must strengthen our commitment to regional integration by harmonizing trade and manufacturing policies with other AFCFTA state parties this is why we have continued to prioritize the critical infrastructure and the implementation of policies and strategies aimed at improving the ease of doing business and strengthening the productive capacity of ns and ease across all sectors the former minister of trade and investment Dr. Lushewa Genger takes to the stage the ease of the opinion that embracing competitive manufacturing under the AFCFTA is crucial for Nigeria's economic growth and integration into the global market he says Nigeria may not be able to compete with China now but it can be a hub in Africa by investing in infrastructure innovation and skilled label while addressing trade barriers it is important to make it absolutely clear from the outset that in modern global economy industrial development is not luck industrial development does not happen by accident it is a nation's choice countries must therefore have an intentional precise and intense approach to noturing I'm expanding industrial activities in Europe the experts say to become a prosperous nation with a strong economy and reclaim its position as a jewel of Africa Nigeria most industrial lies