 Welcome back. It's time for a second hot topic. I want to take a look at FG and states open talks on minimum wage review And I've been joined by Frank Eliana who is Technology and media news editor at business day Hello Frank Yeah, good morning and nice to join you again on the show nice to have you so federal government and states have open talks on Minimum wage review as organized labor insist on pay raise to cushion the effects of petrol subsidy removal Not Frank. What do we know about these talks and how it's evolving? All right, so the thoughts that's ongoing is Against the the current realities of inflation rising in the country currently at that 22.9% And of course the impact it has had on the Take home of workers Across all sectors So if you look at For instance as that 2009 the highest bid lectures in Nigeria were earning if we calculate what they were earning in dollar terms It was at two thousand three hundred a month as at this month month of July sorry as at the July 20 22 that salary has been Decimated to 178 dollars If you look at that in terms, yes, if you look at that in percentage time, that's over 80 percent of Their take home Decimated Yeah, the money will still look like oh, you are giving 100,000 there a month But then if you look at it against inflation, you'll find that what is 100,000 there in 2009 Is probably 20,000 there are today, you know, so against that background the NLC is insisting that they deserve and I think rightly so For their wages to be increased at least the minimum wage And of course, you know that if the minimum wage is increased across all levels of Engagement also they will also see a review. Okay, so what that means is that the government Talking about this federal government the state government I think they talk should also include the local government because local government also have a civil servants And also have workers that they employ So a government across all the three tiers or all the Three tiers Have to meet to talk about how what next to do also Given that it is this the same government that is driving some of the reforms that has led the inflation on the part That it is currently so you you will expect that they should Consider reviewing the minimum wage so that people can at least Take something home after after Working for a whole 30 days in a month, you know, so it is what is currently ongoing and what has brought us to this point Yes Another thing is that since April 2019 when former president Buhari signed a new minimum wage bill of 30,000 narrow a month Some states in the country are yet to implement that making one wonder how they would such states would implement any further increase needed increase necessary increase for the workers Yeah, you're absolutely right that there's some states in fact many states are Struggling to pay the previous raise on the minimum wage and I Thus say that it's not because they don't have it I I believe strongly that is a result of mismanagement Is a result of them not being accountable to the resources that they have and is also a result of laziness To take advantage of the resources that they that they have and grow it What do I mean by that? So we see that Many of them every month are not many of them all of them every month Look forward to the FAC allocation from the federal government. So over time we have had very very Lazy set of governors That's all you think about is how do we get that money and use it maybe to pay off Debt and I use it maybe to also Splunge, you know because most of that money also are diverted and they're not accounted for We've we've strongly said that that money should always be accounted for but it hasn't been done till great So what do you have is what that money is finished? The literate sources that the that the states generates as revenue Are either mismanaged or used in ways that don't Enable them to add or to become investment, you know, so many capital projects are hanging in many states, you know, and many states are going about collecting loans and Many of these loans are not being judiciously Utilized whereas their workers welfare are ignored, you know If it were to maybe calculate how many of them as in how many workers each state have and then Calculated against what's revenue that they generate and what the potential revenue. They should generate They can easily actually paid, you know, if those monies are judicial Juditiously utilized but what we've had over time is corruption in most of these states And because of that corruption because they don't want to give up some of the gains that they make from From diverting these revenues. That is why they are constantly Subjecting workers in their states to these conditions where the federal government makes an allocation or makes Have an agreement with them. You're going to pay 30 30,000 error and then they come back home and say, ah, we don't have it We don't wear a very poor state in order, but from history We know that every state has deep has many Has different resources that they can actually tap into and grow their revenue every state Can actually attract investors every states can actually become Autonomous and financially on their own, but it takes some level of Financial discipline for you to get to that point and sadly many of them are not ready to take that walk yet and that's why We are here and that's why the Workers in the state continue to suffer because of these in decisions they make Well, one of the headlines this morning and I'm giving credit to the punch newspaper Says FG withdraws contempt suit against labor and LC miss suspense strike and one of the Riders the NLC TUC await FG on palliative agreement and then call special meeting over plans strike So there you have it It's it's absolutely crazy for you to want to Go to court with NLC when you're supposed to be Engaging them and Trying to resolve the issues they have everything they have said is Jermaine. I know they are asking for 200,000 error Why why it might seem ridiculous, you know, but some somebody can look at it and say, ah but we are we're running a government to where The National Assembly has allocated 70 billion Naira to itself. We are running a government where the National Assembly has decided that he wants to drive cars new cars And they will cost us 40 billion Naira. We are running a government where The the executive have allocations for newspapers that they don't read anymore They have allocations for different things for going to toilet for doing other things, you know so if you have that humongous cost on of Official personnel and then I think it was yesterday The the president was there trying to defend the over bloated cabinet He's about to inherit and he said that it is a way to create employment so he he recruited 48 people that is going to pay millions and In a month, the accelerates alone gets to billions of Naira. So he says is because he wants to create Employment so he's given employment to few people and using about bill as many billions to pay few people 48 people who in turn will recruit ready about three four people as eight, you know So we don't have our priorities, right? That is where the problem is so if you look at what NLC is asking I'm saying okay pay us 200,000 area a month because you have increased our burden by 300 400 percent, you know So whatever you buy in the market right now is about 300 to 400 percent increase, you know So if they were earning 200,000 Naira before so you calculate that by maybe 300 to 400 Percent you probably arrive at close to 200,000 Naira. That's what they are asking for, you know So it's it's it's crazy there for the government in to turn around and say oh, we're gonna take you to court because you are you're not You're not apparently caught you don't want to engage in all of that, you know Part of the problem we have here is a problem of trust and absolutely I agree with the NLC There's no reason to trust that the government was will do what it has promised to do We have seen it play out in ASU ASU strikes and To date, I know they have not resolved everything that they agree with ASU So we will probably expect another strike from ASU once NLC drops his own Agitation, you know, perhaps after ASU the the medical association will also take up his own Case against the government these are associations have reached different agreements with the government and at the end of the day The government reneged on the agreement which led them back to struggling With the government. So the issue here is about trust the NLC needs to know Needs a commitment from the government that what you have promised you are going to deliver That's just the only thing that they are asking for now if they have said if they're giving you 200,000 Naira as As what they want to be paid you can call them to the table and say, okay, let's let me give you 100,000 Naira You know, yeah, somebody say, oh, but we don't have that money in our to you right now But why do we have money for order frivolities and not money for the welfare of our workers? That's a question that I keep asking if you have money to send the officials Abroad if you have money to employ 48 ministers, you have money to spend on your national assembly You know that why don't you have money for those who actually do the work that these officials inherit You know, so and when you pay NLC or when you pay this the workers that amount of money You are you have to now become a lot more Alack because the money is paying you so you now have to demand more from them And I think that might even lead to Civil service reforms that everybody has been waiting for there's a lot of corruption in our civil service And that's because they're looking at the fact that the government or those who employ them or those who are Who they are serving are being irresponsible So they too feel like that's not deterrent Yesterday again, I was listening to a test to money by a one-colow Something talking about the federal character commission and how he used to be the one to collect money of people who want to be recruited into federal federal federal Startles all right. He collects money from them. He He will remit that money to the account of the chairman Directly, he said that the woman likes the cash, you know that so there's a lot of your Responsibility in the system and people are not even afraid To to to hold back because they know that nobody's gonna do anything to them, you know So NLC's seen all of this and NLC knows that if they don't do something now About themselves. Nobody's gonna care about it So we it is time for us to clean the system But then again, I will say it will start from the government government needs to look in words Clean up the dating corpus that it has it has a lot of it. It is ricking. It is not sitting If we are physically prudent Then we can have better discussions with NLC But at at at the moment with the way we are running our economy. We can't have Productive discussions except to this kind of discussions where you have to give me this I will give you that in all of that back and forth. You know, no There has to be trust in the system. And that's what NLC is asking for with his huge wage demand Interesting you mentioned the huge cabinet that this new government is building for itself I missed calls for prudence. I missed calls for pruning down on government expenses and to add to what the president is Gathering for himself. Adama was the governor. Amadou Finturi of you know has also announced the appointment of 47 Media 8 we're not talking commissioners. We're talking 47 media 8 so Good reason why labor would say there's no reason why you can't pay us Absolutely, you know, so Don't forget that they're not going to be paid hundred thousand there those ones are going to be paid 300,000 400 plus the other things that they will steal the vehicles the brand new vehicles that they like to buy for themselves officially these are like the governor's and Special people it why is that and I don't know what state was one of the states that were not paying the 13,000 Naira So when the government come out and tell us, oh, we cannot pay it because we don't have enough resources to do it another why Would you recruit forces several people To just social media and content creation what content that they created you should open a newsroom. Thank you become a media house Then do something else. So it is crazy and I don't know you so but that's that's a situation we find ourselves and it needs to change before we can make any progress at all All right, so Frank, let's probably leave it at that as the situation continues to unfold We'll begin we continue to analyze and especially hope that the Nigerian workers will get a fair deal This time around Thank you, Frank Thank you so much. Thank you Frank Eliana their technology and media news editor at business day Well, that's our package today on the breakfast this morning before we leave let's Drop our quote of the day with you. Let's go invent tomorrow instead of worrying about what has happened Yesterday, I take that again. Let's go invent tomorrow instead of worrying about what happened yesterday That's according to Steve Jobs. I am more in men always because thanks for being a part of the breakfast today Remember to join us tomorrow for another episode. Have a good day