The Benue State Government and the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, have dismissed speculations that it plans to pay state civil servants N40,000 as minimum wage against the N71,000 signed into law by the president.
Social media platforms in the state were rife with speculations that Governor Alia had during a meeting with workers, proposed to pay N40,000 as minimum wage to civil servants.
This was disclosed, Friday by the Technical Adviser on Media, Publicity and Communication to the Governor, Solomon Iorpev.
He said the Gov Alia administration will not renege in its obligations to pay workers and other cadres of staff their due wages and salaries as approved by law.
Iorpev described the social media speculations as fake news as Gov Alia is out of the state on a working visit to China.
“The 3 days ago already makes it fake news my dear brother. The governor has been in China since Monday so at what occasion did he approve N40,000 3 days ago?”
Also debunking the rumour is the secretary of the Benue State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Joshua Abimiku.
He corroborated Iorpev’s claims, saying during the negotiation, four different options were presented to the people but N40,000 was not among the options.
“What was put forward, and then I think, one is N70,000, the other is N75,000 and then N77,000. So, the one we opted for was that of the 75,000.
“Plans and all other arrangements have been concluded but we didn’t know why it was not implemented this month. But we are giving the government the benefit of the doubt. I mean, today is the first of November already. So, this month it will be implemented as well.
“Nobody’s paying less. N40,000 is less than the national minimum wage and I don’t think any governor has even. That was in the past all those things. I saw those things circulating in the past but that information is not correct”.Abimiku said.
He said all plans have been concluded and it is its implementation that labour was expecting.
“We had hoped that it would come in that last month, but we don’t know why [the delay]. So, let’s hope that this month it will be implemented.”