The House of Representative has on Thursday debated and approved the new minimum wage of N30,000 as provided for in the New Minimum Wage Bill 2019 sent to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari.
This followed the heated debate on the proposed legislation by President Buhari which was sent to the lawmakers and was moved by the House Leader Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila during plenary.
It would be recalled that the National Council of State on Tuesday approved N27,000 for State government workers and N30,000 for federal government workers in the New National Minimum Wage Bill.
But the lawmakers during the debate had lamented that the revised New Minimum Wage Bill is not good enough to address the challenges being faced by Nigerian workers at this inauspicious time.
Most of the lawmakers who spoke during the debate on the bill had called for a two year review of the new minimum wage to cater for the needs of the average Nigerian workers.
Some of the lawmakers who spoke at session notably Hon M. T Monguno Borno, APC), Hon. Sunday Karimi (Kogi, PDP), Hon.Sadiq Ibrahim (Adamawa, APC) and Hon. Toby Okechukwu (Enugu,PDP) had noted that the new wage bill is grossly inadequate to cater for the needs of the citizenry.
Whereas Monguno noted that the new wage bill is not enough to address inflation in the country, Okechukwu particularly noted that it was auspicious for government to be addressing new minimum wage after almost 38 years.
Consequently the House presided by the Speaker Hon Yakubu Dogara passed the bill into second reading.
He thereafter referred it to the House Committee on Labour, Employment and Productivity for further inputs.