Burden of the new wage for the south-east

South-eastern states which have been unable to pay a new wage for their university workers leading to a five-month old strike, see the proposed minimum wage as additional burden
PENULTIMATE Thursday, workers countrywide jubilated when news filtered in that the National Council of State had endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan’s request to award workers N18,000 minimum wage.
Although the bill that would give effect to the new wage is still being awaited, having been sent to the National Assembly by the President, the new salary regime is already eliciting grave concerns in the South-east.
This follows the perception that the draft bill would contain some latitude for states to negotiate what their minimum wage would be and that it would invariably rob off on workers especially those in the zone that have severally become victims of wage increases in the country.
The concerns of the zone are further exacerbated by the continued closure of their state-owned universities in the last five months, following the reluctance of the governors to pay the new salary structure agreed with Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Although several states of the country have implemented the renegotiated ASUU-government agreement since last year, governors of the South-east have declined to pay on the ground that they lacked funds.
In the several months past, the governors had set up committees following their belief that each state should be given the latitude to negotiate what seems affordable. The idea has not worked, as the lecturers are not ready to enter into fresh negotiation on the ground that university administration is the same anywhere in the country.
Thus, the face-off has continued. With none of the warring parties ready to sheath its sword, there is a stalemate. The students of the concerned institutions are at home.  Some of the lecturers since the intractable crisis began have sought greener pastures in other institutions.
In one of the meetings held in Government House, Enugu to resolve the matter, the governors rather called on well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the striking lecturers to go back to the classrooms, while it promised to continue the negotiations until a resolution was reached.
As the stakeholders in the zone mull over the impasse, there are apprehensions that the new minimum wage could become another burden that could finally cripple the zone. This is sign-posted by different sound beats that have trailed the announcement. Last Sunday, governors of the zone held another emergency meeting in Enugu. Although they refused to disclose the outcome of their discussions after the over four-hour meeting, snippets indicated that how to pay the new wage was among the issues that featured prominently.
The Guardian gathered that the five state chief executives prefer that the National Assembly passed the bill on the new wage with latitude for them to “negotiate on the increase”.  They see the development as another confrontation they might not know how to handle.
A source in the meeting disclosed that one of the governors pointedly told his colleagues that there was need to knit together and have a uniform voice on the issue, stressing that the states lacked the required resources to meet with the new salary structure among her numerous challenges.
Another governor was said to have muted that he would need to reduce the state workforce by at least 20 per cent; that there was so much redundancy in the ministries and parastatals of the state. Others were said to have faulted the timing of the implementation of the new salary scale on the ground that being an election year, it requires much resources from them to prosecute.
It was further gathered that it would require serious improvement in internally generated revenue accruing to the states of the zone if they must meet with up the new salary regime or a negotiation that could be acceptable to their workforce. The meeting they said would continue.
Already, disenchantment and suspicion is brewing in the air as workers in the zone are poised to resist any move that could deny them the benefit of enjoying the new minimum wage as their counterparts in other states of the federation.
National Vice President, South-east Zone of the Nigeria Civil Service Union, Anthony Ede, told The Guardian, that the workers would be unwilling to engage in any further negotiation with any state government in the zone over the expected wage.
“As much as we wait for the bill to be passed, we are not willing to engage in further negotiation. We want implementation because we all buy from the same market,” he said.
Ede stated that the workforce of the zone was ageing, but decried the governments’ inability to inject fresh blood into the system.
Citing Enugu as an instance, he stated that the ministries lacked the services of junior workers, stressing that from 1999 till date, no recruitments have been made excerpt from Levels 8 and above.
He admitted that Enugu pays over N8,000 as minimum wage to workers, which is higher than the federally approved wage, but could do better.
He criticized the deregulation of the new wage, saying salaries of governors nationwide was the same: “Nobody has asked that salaries of governors be paid according to resources of the state, why is ours different?”
A politician, Chief Nana Ogbodo expressed similar concerns noting, however, that it would be unfair to the workers of the South-east should the various state governments engage in further negotiation to pay the new wage.
He said: “I see no reason why they will not pay or say that they do not have the resources to meet with the payment. One thing about this country is that those at the helm of affairs like to see civil servants live in perpetual poverty and I don’t think the N18,000 is enough to match the level of suffering and deprivation suffered by civil servants in this country. What we should ask ourselves is how much governors receive as security votes and how they are spent.”
National Publicity Secretary of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), Osita Okechukwu in a statement decried the “caveat being posted by government to decentralize the approved minimum wage”, saying it gives room for manipulations.
He said such provision was responsible for the closure of South-east state universities.
“Is it not paradoxical that state governors, who receive monthly allocations from the federation account, squandering huge state resources as security votes and hiring unnecessary number of personal staff, which heavily deplete resources, can now hide under true federalism to deny Nigerian workers of less than a living wage?” he asked.
A civil rights activist, George Ikechukwu said that the new wage was the beginning of another squabble in the South-east, stressing that reactions of governors of the zone to such issues had always been on the negative:
“When you visit the South-east, you see non-functional industries scattered all over the place - Sunrise Floor Mill, AVOP, Nigergas, Nigersteel, Ada Palm, Ceramics, Golden Guinea, Standard Plastics, Premier Breweries and many others. If they neglected all these, why won’t they neglect their workers?”
Head of Service of Enugu State, Sylvanus Onoyima, however, told The Guardian that government would speak on the matter when the National Assembly would have passed the bill for a new wage.
Although he agreed that the new wage bill could pose some difficulty, he quickly asserted that the state was not doing badly in the areas of welfare of her workers, stressing that he was hopeful it would continue.
He said: “The National Assembly is still fine tuning the law guiding the implementation of the new salary structure and until the law comes out, we cannot say anything regarding the payment. But I want to tell you that civil servants in the state are happy at the moment because the state is not the least in payment of the old salary structure. We hope to negotiate”.
As the workers await the passage of the proposed bill, how the issue would be handled in the South-east, which seems to be trailing behind others in the country, will be known with time.
SOURCE:ngrguardiannews.com