Babatunde Fashola, a former minister of works and housing, says the national assembly may have unconstitutionally legislated on salaries instead of minimum wage.
In an article entitled ‘Minimum Wage Review – My Takeaway’,
Fashola said what the constitution provides for to be legislated on in the
exclusive-legislative list is the country’s minimum wage.
A person earning a salary is paid a fixed amount over a
period of time, while a person earning a wage is paid by the hour.
Recently, the organised labour has been demanding an
increase in minimum wage of N30,000 owing to the rising inflation that has
pushed food prices up.
While the federal government has offered to pay N62,000,
labour unions have insisted on N250,000.
Fashola said there is need for the constitution to be
amended to allow for the fixing of minimum salaries of workers.
“In my recent monograph, ‘The Nigerian Public Discourse: The
Interplay of Empirical Evidence and Hyperbole’, I had made the point at page 89
that the word used in item 34 of the Exclusive Legislative list is minimum
wage,” the former minister said.
“It does not talk about salaries. I further stated that ‘…it
has also been shown, wages and salaries are different and should not be
conflated.’ I posited that ‘…efforts to improve minimum wage must be that and
nothing more. It must not translate to a salary overhaul by accident’.
“Therefore, it seems obvious from this definition that by
making a law in Section 3(1) of the Minimum Wage Act that the minimum wage of
N30,000 shall be paid monthly, the NASS may have acted unconstitutionally by
legislating on a SALARY (monthly payment) when they only have power to
legislate on WAGES, an hourly payment.
“This is important while the conversation on minimum wage is
being had in 2024 because in Section 3(4), the minimum wage ‘shall be reviewed
in line with the provisions of this Act’ which includes Section 3(1) that has
prescribed a monthly amount instead of an hourly wage.
“If we follow the proper definition of wages as an hourly
rate and apply the global method for computing it, which is to divide the gross
annual sum by 52 weeks, and further by 40 hours recommended per week, we will
have for Nigeria a minimum wage that is not N30,000 per month, but rather
N30,000 X 12 (months) = N36,000 divided by 52 (weeks) = N6,923.07 divided by 40
(hours), which will give a minimum wage of N173.07 per hour.
“What we have done is
to erroneously fix monthly minimum salaries as wages, and then effect
consequential adjustment for all other SALARY EARNERS, which results in a
bloated compensation wage that employees find difficult to meet.”
The former governor of Lagos said both high and low income
earners deserve adjustments in their salaries and wages owing to the rising
cost of living.
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