Onigbinde said the amount while it is a great start, may not do much for workers with inflation now 34.19 per cent as of June 2024.
BudgIT boss, Seun Onigbinde has reacted to the new minimum wage of N70,000 reached by labour unions and the Federal Government.
According to him, it is not enough, but a good start.
“It’s not enough, in my own view. But it’s a great start because when you look at minimum wage, you have to do that in two levels,” the Co-Founder of civic group BudgIT said on Friday’s edition of Channels Television’s The Morning Brief.
Labour unions and the Federal Government had reached the agreement on Thursday after months of deliberations and strikes. The deal which came in the wake of the fuel subsidy removal that pushed the cost of living to new highs, moved the minimum wage from N30,000.
But Onigbinde said the amount while it is a great start, may not do much for workers with inflation now 34.19 per cent as of June 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
“So, I feel it’s a great start. It doesn’t look great as I want it to be. I was hoping we could get something within the N100,000 to N120,000 corridor because things are really that bad in terms of galloping levels of inflation.
“But the government has left a window that within three years, there’s an opportunity to revise this current minimum wage. So we will look forward to that.
“And maybe by then, there will be clear arguments about the fact that the current inflation situation that we have right now, is worrisome. And whatever minimum wage or whatever increase that we are talking about now, it is just not enough at all.”
A professor of international law Ademola Abbas shared similar sentiments as the BudgIT boss. While commending the Federal government for increasing the minimum wage, he said bringing down the inflation figures will make the recent move more impactful.
“What this government has done in making this increment from N30,000 to N70,000 is commendable whether we like it or not. It is highly commendable,” he said on the show.
“However, what the government now needs to do is to work very hard to bring down the inflation. That is when this particular wage is going to have a decisive and desirable impact on the working masses of Nigeria.”