….Lists Fiscal, Monetary Conditions For Successful Implementation
Following President Bola Tinubu’s approval of a new minimum wage of N70,000 for Nigerian workers and promise to review the national minimum wage law every three years, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has solicited the President’s assistance to the organized private sector (OPS) and the sub-nationals to pay the minimum wage.
The association in a statement issued by the Director-General, Mr. Segun Ajayi-Kadir, noted the approval was a positive development being the outcome of series of negotiations between government and labour,
The group commended the President for achieving the breakthrough and expressed its expectation to the promised assistance for the OPS in the implementation of the minimum wage.
The Director-General pointed out that on the side of the private sector, players should hold on to the promise of the President that the Federal Government will find a way to assist us to pay the minimum wage agreed with the labour groups.
Ajayi-Kadir stated that in this regards, he would assume that reference would be made to the demands made by the OPS at the concluding stage of the tripartite negotiations.
According to him, the OPS had intimated the committee with the challenges confronting businesses in the country and that there was the need to ameliorate those challenges in order to improve the capacity of our members to pay the minimum wage earlier proposed by the private sector.
He recalled that OPS maintained that those binding constraints may constitute impediments to the full compliance of our member when the minimum wage is signed into law, adding that the assumption is that Tinubu will give expedited consideration to those challenges and take necessary steps to address them in order to onboard the private sector in the new agreement on the minimum wage.
To this end, the association’s Director-General presented a list of demands of the MAN, including the exemption of the SMEs and MSMEs from compliance in view of their incapacity and prevailing operational challenges; and that the redemption by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) of all validly transacted outstanding forex forwards for companies in the productive sector.
In addition, the manufacturers canvased the reversal of increase in electricity tariffs OR only 100% increase in electricity tariff for minimum of 20 hours of supply; duty exemption on imported conversion kits and government subsidy on procurement of same; a freeze on introduction of new taxes on businesses for the next five years; and a fixed rate of N800 for the assessment of import duty on all production inputs.
Other demands of the group are the revisit of the recent Financial Reporting Council regulation to curtail its application to private businesses; discontinuation of the Price Verification Portal as it is inimical to the smooth operation of businesses and the basis for setting it up no longer exist, which has been implemented by the CBN.
Ajayi-Kadri expressed the association’s optimism that the positive atmosphere created by the recent agreement between government and the organized labour would facilitate speedy consideration and acceptance of its demand by the government.
