June 14, (THEWILL) – The Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) has said local councils cannot afford to pay N62,000 as the new minimum wage.
National President of ALGON and Chairman of Lafia Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, Aminu Muazu-Maifata, disclosed this to newsmen in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital, on Monday.
Also Speaking on Channels Television’s Business Morning segment of the Sunrise Daily breakfast programme on Thursday, Muazu-Maifata called on the Federal Government to start the process of an upward review of federal allocation to the 774 local councils across Nigeria. He said this would enable the local governments to pay the proposed 62,000 national minimum wage.
He lamented that the 774 local government councils in Nigeria receive little above 18 per cent from the Federation Account monthly.
According to him, it is grossly inadequate to pay N62,000 to workers, adding that even if local government chairmen decide to use the entire monthly allocations for salaries alone, it would still not be enough to implement the new minimum wage.
He also called for the amendment of the constitution to make the tenure of office of LGA officials uniform across the country for smooth administration, pledging that the association would work with other stakeholders to ensure full implementation of the area councils’ autonomy as enshrined in the country’s constitution.
“With the present allocation from the Federal Accounts, no local government administration can pay workers the N62,000 minimum wage proposal by the Federal Government let alone the N250,000 demand of the organised labour.
“Some local governments have not started paying their workers N30,000 which was approved as minimum wage in 2019. You can see that in many local councils across the country, workers are still being paid the former N18,000 minimum wage. As far as I am concerned, an affordable minimum wage should be set and not something unsustainable.
“The local government administrations in the country cannot afford the proposed minimum wage by the organised labour.
“Apart from payment of wages, local government chairmen have other responsibilities such as the provision of affordable healthcare, education, security issues, traditional institutions, rural roads as well as youths and women empowerment among others.
“The tenure of office of LGA officials should be made four years to enable them to deliver on their campaign promises to the electorate. The tenure is three years in some states and two years in some other states which is not good for the administration at the local councils,” he said.
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