Minimum wage negotiation committee holds inaugural meeting – TheNigerialawyer

The committee set up by the Federal Government to negotiate the
consequential adjustment arising from the new minimum wage will on
Thursday meet for the first time, three weeks after its
inauguration and less than a week before its job is scheduled to be
completed.

The committee was inaugurated by the former Secretary to the
Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, on May 14, 2019 with
the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita,
appointed as chairman.

Other members of the committee are ministers of ministries
relevant to the negotiation. Mustapha said the committee would work
for four weeks with the inaugural meeting scheduled to hold on May
20, 2019 but the meeting was never held. All the ministers
appointed to be part of the committee had left their positions
after the expiration of their term as ministers in the last
administration.

Organised labour had accused government of deliberately using
inauguration to delay the negotiation, expressing the fear that
government could begin to look for a way of reducing the amount
using complex financial technicalities.

Secretary of the Joint National Public Service Negotiating
Council, Alade Lawal, told our correspondent said it was not
necessary to wait for new ministers to be appointed before
negotiation would commence. According to him, permanent secretaries
in the ministries were competent to hold forth for government.

On Monday, a member of the committee who spoke on condition of
anonymity because he was not asked to speak on behalf of the
negotiation team said a date had finally been fixed, adding that
permanent secretaries would represent ministers at the inaugural
meeting.

He said, “Finally, a date for the inaugural meeting has been
fixed for Thursday, June 6, 2019 at the Office of the Secretary to
the Government of the Federation. Permanent Secretaries from
various ministries will act in place of the ministers that were
appointed to be on the board. That is governance. That is the way a
government should run state business.

“Government must not allow a vacuum to delay state matters
because there is always a provision in the constitution for someone
to act on behalf of government. During the tripartite committee
meetings on minimum wage, most of the time, the ministers were
represented by the permanent secretaries.

“They made good representation. They are in custody of the
technical details because they are always in government even when
there are no ministers. They have all the details. It takes a
minister up to one year to understand business of a ministry, so we
cannot be waiting for that. Enough time had been wasted on this
issue.”

Confirming the date of the meeting, HCSF, Oyo-Ita, speaking
through the Director, OHCSF, Mrs Ogunmosunle Olawunmi, told our
correspondent that the meeting was actually scheduled to hold on
Tuesday (today) but was shifted to Thursday because of the public
holiday.

Also earlier on Monday, Director of Communication at the SGF
office, Mr Willie Bassey, told our correspondent that the office
was not responsible for the delay in the commencement of the
committee’s inaugural meeting.”

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