Fuel Subsidy: FG Begins 40% Pay Rise For Workers April Ending

 

touchaheart Nigeria reports that If nothing unexpected changes, the Federal Government will start paying the anticipated wage hike for civil personnel by the end of this month (April). This is according to touchaheart Nigeria.

 

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, ret., is anticipated to approve the payout in the very near future.

 

If the idea is approved, the hike will occur around two months prior to the June withdrawal deadline for the gasoline subsidy.

 

Federal officials exclusively revealed to touchaheart Nigeria that the new pay boost, called a consequential allowance, would result in a 40% increase in the present compensation of government employees.

 

Olajide Oshundun, the Ministry of Labour and Employment’s Director of Press and Public Relations, revealed in an exclusive interview with The PUNCH that the Federal Government may start paying the 40% pay increase by the end of April this year. He also said that the three months’ worth of arrears from January, February, and March would be paid at a later time.

 

Oshundun, however, stated that she was unable to confirm whether the suggestion made by the government committee tasked with the assignment had actually been accepted by the President.

 

According to him, civil officials at levels 1 through 17 will see a 40% boost in consequential allowance Salaries.

 

We now receive a combined basic wage and all allowances, which is referred to as the consolidated public service salary system. The raise will therefore be 40% of what a public servant currently makes.

 

They will begin making payments at the end of this month (April), and the arrears from January, February, and March will be paid at a later date. Starting in January 2023, the pay rise will take effect. I’m not sure if the President has yet signed the suggestion made by the committee established to look into civil worker wage adjustments.

 

The Federal Government approved a wage hike for the nation’s civil officials, according to information released by Minister of Labor and Employment Chris Ngige last month.

 

The wage increase, he continued, had been planned for in the 2023 budget and would go into effect on January 1, 2023.

 

According to Ngige, the wage increase is a special benefit for civil officials given the state of the economy. It is intended to help government employees fend off the consequences of growing inflation, rising living expenses, and increases in transportation, housing, and electricity prices.

 

The headline inflation rate in Nigeria rose to 22.04 percent in March, the highest level since September 2005, according to touchaheart Nigeria.

 

The current increase in inflation is the third consecutive increase this year, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, and it is 0.13 percentage points higher than the headline inflation rate from February 2023.

 

The NBS further stated that a sizable portion of overall inflation was attributable to the price of food and beverages.

 

Items at the divisional level that contributed to the increase in the headline index were: food and non-alcoholic beverages (11.42%); housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuel (3.69%); clothing and footwear (1.69%); transportation (1.43%); furnishings, household equipment, and maintenance (1.11%); education (0.87%); health (0.66%); other goods and services (0.37%); and restaurant and hotels (0.27%).

 

However, organized labor organizations on Monday criticized the proposed wage raise as a meager allowance that wouldn’t amount to a 40% boost in workers’ salaries.

 

In response, Tommy Etim, national vice president of the Trade Union Congress, affirmed in a telephone conversation that the government was making the efforts to raise “allowances and not salaries,” as had been implied publicly.

 

The strange circumstances surrounding the termination of the fuel subsidy and inflation, in his opinion, are what led to the allowance being increased. However, he emphasized that civil servants had not yet received salary.

 

“I am aware of the government’s moves, and the payment is set to begin in January,” he declared. The new payment does not represent an increase in workers’ wages. So that we don’t mislead the public, it is an odd allowance rather than a pay raise. There has been only a little, uniform increase in basic pay. To prevent the market woman from assuming that the government has raised salaries, other components are left alone. It is a reimbursement due to the particular circumstances surrounding the withdrawal of the gasoline subsidy and inflation. A stipend is not a pay. I can’t comment with authority until every civil servant’s bank account has been affected because no one has received.

 

The government has also been urged by Etim, who is also the president of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, to consider raising the salaries of other senior civil servants.

 

We would also appreciate it if additional allowances were taken into consideration, particularly housing and transportation. Since some civil officials spend their entire wage solely on transportation, not to mention paying housing and other expenses, the socioeconomic indicators of today do not favor transportation for these individuals. That is an important factor that the government should also take into consideration, he continued.

 

The Nigerian Labour Congress, however, asserted that they were unaware of the promised raise, saying, “We are only hearing rumors about it.

 

NLC National Treasurer Hakeem Ambali stated that the union had not yet participated in any type of dialogue over the matter.

 

For us, we only hear it as rumors,he said, “since there are processes for discussing fringe benefits and workers’ entitlements, which is done through collective bargaining. There would need to be negotiations among the three parties. But based on what we can now see, it still seems to be a rumor. We are still waiting for the Federal Government to invite the required labor arm to a meeting where negotiations will take place and we would agree.

 

Any increase that wasn’t based on empirically supported evidence would not be acceptable to labor. To get a reasonable conclusion, we must sit down and consider the inflationary and economic tendencies. Returning to the bargaining table is the first step, therefore.

 

When asked what the union would do if the government moved forward with the proposed plan, he responded simply, “We would continue in our push. Even in our acceptance speech, we made it clear that labor will negotiate with the Federal Government on minimum wage increment, so any allowance that doesn’t take cognisance of the economic reality of the day is not acceptable to labor.