May Day: FG’s 35% pay rise mischievous, says Ajaero

President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, has described the 35 per cent pay rise of the Federal Government civil servants as mischievous, saying living wage should be N615, 000.

Ajaero stated this while speaking during an interview on Channels Television on Wednesday.

Recall that the Federal Government approved a pay rise of between 25 and 35 percent for civil servants across various consolidated salary structures on Tuesday.

Ajaero said the last minimum wage of N30,000 expired on April 18.

He said, “We should be in the regime of new minimum wage as of today. Discussions were supposed to have been concluded.

“The Federal Government through the National Assembly legislated on it. But because the federal government refused to reconvene the meeting that was adjourned.

“I think the announcement now appears mischievous because there is no wage increase that government is announcing. For them to announce it now, it is an issue that we are worried about at the NLC and even at the TUC.”

Ajaero said the organised labour has agreed on N615,000 as the living wage for civil servants.

The NLC leader said, “Living wage is such that will, at least keep you alive. It is not a wage that will make you poor and poorer.
It is not a wage that will make you borrow to go to work. It is not a wage that will lead you to be in the hospital everyday because of malnutrition. For that living wage, we have tried to look at N615,000.

“Let me give you a breakdown of how we arrived at that figure. We have housing and accommodation of N40,000. We asked for electricity of N20,000, of course that was before the current tariff increase. Nobody can spend this amount currently. We have utility that is about N10,000. We looked at kerosene and gas that is about N25,000 to N35,000.

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