Date: 2018-10-15

The Kwara State Chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has called on Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed to plan a supplementary budget for the 2019 budget in respect of the proposed minimum wage.

The tripartite committee of the labour unions comprising the NLC and members of Trade Union Congress (TUC) during their meeting with the Federal Government team pegged the new minimum wage for the workers at N30,000 while the latter concluded on N24,000.

Speaking with our reporter, the Kwara State Chairman of NLC, Comrade Yekeen Agunbiade said, "I want to tasks the state government to do a supplementary budget for 2019 in respect of our new minimum wage when it is passed.

"If they plan a supplementary budget for the 2019 budget, it will be easy in readjusting to the new minimum wage agreed by the FG and state government and other stakeholders in the country.

"We don't want a situation whereby only the FG will implement the new minimum wage and the state government will give excuse that it wasn't captured in the 2019 budget," he said. The Chairman frowned at the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige's stand on the resolution between the FG and the labour leaders recently.

He said, "The Minister is just deceiving the public on the negotiations but I want to assure him that 2019 general elections is fast approaching and they will still call us to a roundtable soon and there, we'll tell them our position.

We decided to suspend the strike to negotiate with them for a final resolution but if they want us to continue with the strike, we'll go on."

On the general performance of the 2018 budget, Agunbiade gave the state government a pass mark.

The Kwara State Government will be presenting the 2019 budget to the state House of Assembly on November 21, as reported by this medium, last week.