The National Minimum Wage is a national thing.
It is not Maximum Wage. It is Minimum Wage and it ought to be a living wage.
Negotiations for a National Minimum Wage by law involves the state governments with one governor from each geopolitical nominated by the governors from that zone representing them.
After the National Minimum wage has been agreed on and set, the states can then negotiate with their state workers.
BUT whatever Wage should not be lower than the National Minimum Wage. That is the irreducible Minimum. It could only be higher.
We are not in a banana republic where each person decides what he or she wants to do, irrespective of what the law says.
The Governors must find a way to do what they must do, including, by aggressively increasing IGR (not only through taxes & levies), cutting costs, reducing wastages and by not keeping an overbloated and largely unproductive civil service as is the case in all states currently.
If I was a state governor, what would I do?
I would among other things, within 6 months reduced my state work force by a Minimum of up to 40%.
How?
Firstly, by facilitating the transition of many civil servants into private and lucrative self employment, business endeavours, particularly in the area of Agriculture in its entire value chain. No worker would be thrown into the unemployment market.
I will then maintain a minimum number of required, relevant and productive workforce and place a cap on the number in future recruitments; prioritising right-recruitment with emphasis on areas of need, competence and specialty.
In addition to that, after the right sizing, a ministry like ministry for agriculture will have only relevant and designated staff coming to work in the ministry.
The rest would be posted to and resume work daily in state farms (ultramodern farm settlements and villages) that I would set up, either with state funds or through PPPs or both, in each of the senatorial districts, for both crop and animal production and agro processing.
The money I would spend in the immediate in doing these would be recovered over time through future savings in salaries, greater income generation and a more productive citizenry.
It's neither rocket science, nor am I over simplifying it. It only requires having the political will and the right ideas (thinking out of the box) and diligent implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
Let's stop giving the governors any justification and excuses to continue to be lazy, irresponsible or to shy away from their responsibilities.
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©️ Uche Diala
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