Indications emerged on Wednesday that President Goodluck Jonathan was yet to sign the N18,000 Minimum Wage bill passed by the two chambers of the National Assembly, contrary to reports that the President had signed it.
The Senate passed the bill on February 23 while the House of Representatives passed it on March 2, 2011.
The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu, said on Wednesday that the reports that the President had signed the Minimum Wage Bill were wrong.
According to him, the bill had not been forwarded to the President for his attention.
Wogu said that the Minimum Wage bill was still with the Legal Department of the National Assembly and had not been sent to the President.
He described as unfortunate the widely circulated that the wage bill had been assented to by the President.
Wogu explained that Nigerians would know whenever the bill was signed into law as it would not be done in secret.
He said, “Well I must say that the President has not signed the bill on minimum wage. If he signs it, there is no way people will not know. It is unfortunate that that report came out. The bill is still with the Legal Department of the National Assembly.”
Wogu’s explanation also followed conflicting statements from senior government officials, who disagreed on Tuesday on whether the President had assented to the bill or not.
A claim by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed, that the bill had been signed into law was contradicted by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Communications, Mr. Ima Niboro, who said that the President had not received the bill.
Mohammed had said in an address read on his behalf by the Director in charge of Administration and Social Development, Alhaji Salihu Ashara, at the inauguration of a N2.3bn national secretariat of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday that the President had signed the bill into law.
“It may interest you to know that Mr. President has just signed into law the N18,000 Minimum Wage approved by the National Assembly, not just because civil servants said no minimum wage, no election, but because he shares your moments, having been a salary earner himself, even when he was a lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt.”
Prior to the clarification by Wogu, the General Secretary NLC, Mr. John Odah and the Secretary General of the Trade Union Congress, Chief John Kolawole, had all hailed the President’s reported signing of the bill.
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this is a very sensitive issue that every salary earner is seriously waiting for the day that the money will be paid.no matter where the bill is salary earners are only intrested in getting what is due to them and when dew.
ReplyDeleteMr president should try to make things happen.