•Insists states have to negotiate to reflect economic reality
James Emejo in Abuja
Nigerian civic organisation, BudgIT, has said a blanket minimum wage implementation was currently not feasible given the horizontal fiscal imbalance among the 36 states of the federation.
In its “Wage Bill of States” report which analysed the country’s current minimum wage controversy, particularly states revenue capacity, wage bill and fiscal imbalance, BudgIT stated that considering the wage bill of states and average monthly salary to a worker, each state would have to negotiate its own minimum wage based on its economic reality.
The organisation noted that though all the states earned N7.85 trillion in 2023, 15 per cent of the amount was earned by Lagos alone, while 51 per cent of the cumulative revenue went to the top eight states including Lagos, Delta, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Oyo, Ogun and Ondo.
It further based its conclusion on the fraction of…
Source: Thisday Newspaper
