WHY INCREASE IN MINIMUM WAGE WON'T WORSEN INFLATION

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The Trade Union Congress, TUC said increasing the minimum wage for civil servants will not worsen inflation.

This was stated by the president of TUC, Festus Osifo during an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday.

Osifo said the increase in the minimum wage is justified because of the increased revenue allocation to states since May 2023.

He said, “If you look today, from May 2023 to date, revenue from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) to the state governments has tripled,” he said.

“This means the state government has more money to build roads and schools to purchase other items.

“The most critical aspect of production is labour. It is for you to take part of the money and pay workers. That won’t increase inflation because the money will be spent anyway; if you don’t give it to workers, it will be spent on other projects.

“Giving workers what is due them won’t necessarily worsen inflation,” he said.

This comes amid the economic hardship occasioned by removal of subsidy on petrol and unification of the exchange rate windows.

Recall that the federal government approved an increase of between 25 percent and 35 percent salary increase for civil servants on the six consolidated salary structures.

In January, the government had set up a 37-member tripartite committee on the minimum wage, after which the organised labour submitted a demand of N615,000 as the new minimum wage for workers.

The labour union urged the government to announce the new minimum wage on Workers’ Day.