The Nigeria Employers Consultative Association has flayed the decision of the Senate to decentralise the national minimum wage, saying the action of the lawmakers will have great implications on the economy.
The upper legislative chamber had unanimously voted for the decentralisation of the national minimum wage and its excision from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrent legislative list in the 1999 Constitution currently undergoing amendment.
Speaking under the umbrella of NECA, the employers called on the Ministry of Labour and Productivity not to remain silent on the national issue that affects workers across the country.
The Director-General, NECA, Mr. Segun Oshinowo, said during the 56th Annual General Meeting of the association in Lagos, that the matter ought to have been discussed on the platform of the social partners, before any decision on minimum wage review could be taken.
Speaking further, he said the argument that setting of minimum wage by the Federal Government violated the principle of true federalism was baseless, adding that true federalism should not be about duplication of roles and overlapping responsibilities.
Oshinowo said, “Ministry of labour should not be quiet on this matter as it has great implication on the economy. We believe true federalism should not be on the portal of duplicating of roles or overlapping responsibilities. So government should not duplicate regulatory responsibility over us.”
Also speaking at the event, the President of NECA, Chief Richard Uche, decried the current state of the economy particularly the rising youth unemployment, which he described as “a ticking time bomb, which, if we fail to diffuse as quickly as possible, may erode whatever semblance of social harmony and stability in the polity.”
He said the efforts by government to create quality jobs in the country had not yielded the needed result because government was “merely scratching the issue on the surface”.
He said, “I believe we need to go back to the fundamentals of our economy where such big issues like diversification of the economy, backward and forward integration, policy coherence, policy consistency and cross-sectoral local content policy will be given their pride of place and execution impetus.
“Every policy action and decision of government should be judged on the basis of its impact on job creation. All the aforementioned policy options should be underpinned by a sincere constitutional amendment that will enthrone true federalism and resource control.”