My immediate task is to put minimum wage issue to rest, says Ngige

Returning Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige
has assured workers that the controversy surrounding the
implementation of the new national minimum wage will soon be laid
to rest, saying the government was committed to ensuring that
workers begin to enjoy the new wage.

Ngige also disclosed that he refused to register the united
Labour Congress as a labour federation in his first coming to the
ministry because they have not met the legal requirement of having
12 brand new labour unions, even though they currently have about
18 unions in their fold.

Ngige told newsmen at his residence shortly after being sworn in
by the President and reassigned to the same ministry he presided
over in the last three and half years that he hope to receive the
brief of the progress so far made on the consequential adjustment
from the Permanent Secretary on Thursday.

Ngige and his Minister of State, Senator Tayo Alasoudura are
expected to report for duty at the federal secretariat complex on
Thursday.

He said “I am coming in with experience. We have been there for
three and half years. The President evaluated our efforts and felt
that we should return there. That does not mean that we are going
back there to sleep or go and be making merry.

“We have so many outstanding issues to be addressed, some of
them urgently too. As we speak, SSANU, NASU are on strike and the
university system is not bubbling, but going comatose. So, we have
to address that issue urgently.

“We also have the issue of minimum wage consequential
adjustment. My Permanent Secretary is handling it and they have
made some progress. By tomorrow, we will get the hand over note
from him and myself and the Minister of State will study it and
know to key in.

“The important thing is that we want to make sure that matter is
addressed as quickly as possible and put a smile on the faces of
Nigerian workers.

“I am a man of due process and if you like due process, you will
be my friend. If you don’t do things abnormally, then you are my
friend and you don’t have problem with me. If government is wrong,
I will tell them you are wrong and that this is the way we should
do it so that we can come out of such a bad situation.

“I don’t think Labour and Employers have had it so good. I put
in all my energy in whatever assignment I am given and I did so in
the Ministry of Labour in the last three and half years.

“I remain committed to working with the Labour unions. The NLC
is a federation of labour unions. You have other federations such
as the trade union Congress of Nigeria and the United Labour
Congress which has not been officially registered, but there are
unions that are there.”

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