The Senate on Tuesday approved N30,000 as the new national minimum wage.
This decision was reached after the upper chamber’s ad-hoc committee on new minimum wage headed by Senator Francis Alimikhena, submitted its report.
The Senate then went on to request the Federal Government to submit a supplementary budget to cover the new wage structure for consideration and approval.
The Senator representing Benue Northeast Senatorial district, Barnabas Gemade had insisted that no governor in the states of the federation should complain over payment of N30,000 minimum wage.
Gemade, who lost his senatorial re-election bid on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the just-concluded elections, insisted that states have enough resources to pay minimum wage.
He faulted those governors complaining of inadequate resources, adding that if resources available to states were prudently managed, payment of wages would be easy.
The lawmaker further explained that candidates including state governors spent humongous resources buying votes in the just-concluded elections, claiming that it was the state resources governors use for their elections.
He said, “There is no state in the country that cannot pay the N30,000 National minimum wage. They have enough resources to pay.
“I saw in the just concluded elections how votes were massively bought by the state resources and nobody should tell Nigerians that they cannot pay. They should pay,” the lawmaker insisted.
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