The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association,
NECA, has urged the Federal Government to begin the payment of the national minimum wage to junior workers and those in the low income category while negotiations on consequential salary adjustments are ongoing.


The Director-General, NECA, Mr. Timothy Olawale, who made the plea during an interview the press, urged the labour union and government to come to a compromise and reach a middle ground on the minimum wage negotiations so that the people on the lower rung of the ladder would not suffer.


On the consequential salary adjustment, the government had agreed on nine per cent while labour insists on twenty-four per cent.


Meanwhile, the Nigeria Labour Congress had earlier warned that the government could no longer hide under protracted negotiations with workers in the public sector for consequential salary adjustment to delay the implementation of the new national minimum wage.


However, the President of NLC, Ayuba Wabba, recently assured that the NLC would abide by the negotiating council’s decision advising the parties to be flexible in their positions on the matter.
He warned that if the situation degenerates into industrial crises, everyone would suffer.