Presidency set to present minimum wage bill to NASS – Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari says a bill on implementation of the New Minimum Wage would soon be sent to the National Assembly for passage.

Buhari made this known while presenting the 2019 Budget before the joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday.

He assured that he was committed to addressing the minimum wage issue, saying he had directed the setting up of a technical committee to look at mode of implementation.

“To avoid a system crisis on the Federal Government and states, it is important to device ways to ensure that its implementation does not lead to an increase in the level of borrowing.

“I am accordingly setting up a high powered technical committee to advise on ways of funding an increase in the minimum wage and attendant wage adjustments without having to resort to additional borrowing.

“The work of the committee will be the basis of finance bill which will be submitted to the national assembly alongside the minimum wage bill.

Buhari, said the committee would recommend modalities for the implementation of the new minimum wage.

According to him, the move is to minimise inflationary impact as well as ensure that its introduction does not lead to job losses.

Our correspondent recalls that the Amal Pepple Tripartite Committee on the Review of National Minimum Wage, had on Nov. 6, submitted its report to Buhari.

The committee recommended N30, 000 as the new national minimum wage.

It was reported that the 2019 budget as presented by the president is N8.83 trillion.

He said the total budget is N300 billion lower than the N9.1 billion being implemented for the current fiscal year.

According to Buhari, N4.04 trillion or 50.31 per cent is earmarked for recurrent expenditure and N2.03 trillion representing 22.98 per cent earmarked for capital projects.