{"id":6766,"date":"2015-12-03T21:27:24","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T21:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=6766"},"modified":"2015-12-03T21:27:24","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T21:27:24","slug":"get-ready-for-lower-wages-or-we-downsize-governors-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=6766","title":{"rendered":"Get ready for lower wages or we downsize – Governors Forum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nigerian governors will eventually reduce
\nthe federal minimum wage of N18,000 or
\ndownsize because of the current economic
\ncrunch, the chairman of the body of
\ngovernors has said.
\nThe chairman of the Nigerian Governors
\nForum and Zamfara state governor,
\nAbdulaziz Yari, said on Thursday that
\nirrespective of public condemnations of
\nthe plan, it would not be economically
\nfeasible to retain the same workforce and
\npay same amount of money.
\nAccording to him, funds allocated from the
\nFederation Account could no longer
\nsustain the expenses of the state as the
\ninternally generated revenue was still
\nbelow par in some states.
\nGovernors had two weeks ago declared
\nthat they could no longer cope with the
\nN18, 000 minimum wage. The
\npronouncement caused a stir as Nigerians
\nkicked against it.
\nThe governors of Rivers and Edo rejected
\nthe plan.
\nEmerging from a meeting with President
\nMuhammadu Buhari at the State House
\nAbuja, on Thursday, Mr. Yari said the
\ngovernors were considering the nation\u2019s
\neconomic situation.
\n\u201cLet me make it very clear to Nigerians,
\ngovernor\u2019s forum is not the enemy of
\nlabour in any way. Rather, we have been
\nworking together. But what we are saying,
\n(because not only Gov. Wike but also my
\nfriend in the comradeship, Adams
\nOshiomhole, kicked against the decision)\u2026
\n\u201cWhat we said is that when the National
\nAssembly enacted the law of paying N18,
\n000 minimum wage, then the oil was about
\n$118 per barrel and today where we are oil
\nis $41 per barrel.
\n\u201cSo, if it continues like that definitely we
\nwill find it difficult to continue. We have to
\nsit down with the labour and see how we
\ncan review; either continue or downsizing,
\nor see what we are going to do.
\n\u201cWe want to find a solution because we
\nhave to be realistic that we have so many
\nthings to touch. There is infrastructure
\ndeficit, there is need for security, there are
\nother things like social lives of our people
\nand nation as a state,\u201d he said.
\nThe governor said from the federation
\naccount, some states received N400
\nmillion, N500 million while others received
\nN55 million.
\n\u201cAnd there are other issues, not even the
\nsalary, their pension is over a billion. So,
\nhow can we continue borrowing and
\nservicing the service aspect of our
\nexpenditure, or overhead. How can we do
\nthat?
\n\u201cWe are telling the public that we are
\nplanning to sit down with the president
\nand his team and the state governors as a
\nteam and the experts to come out with the
\nway forward and how we are going to
\nhandle the poor state of the economy in
\nthe country.
\n\u201cBut what we have on ground now will not
\nbe realistic if it continues the way it is
\nwithout having other sources from the
\neconomy and still relying on oil that is
\nbeing sold for $118 dollar per barrel and
\nnow down to $41 and think that we can
\ncontinue behaving or misbehaving the way
\nwe are doing, if there is anything like that,\u201d
\nhe added.
\n.\"Delta<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nigerian governors will eventually reduce the federal minimum wage of N18,000 or downsize because of the current economic crunch, the chairman of the body of governors has said. The chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum and Zamfara state governor, Abdulaziz Yari, said on Thursday that irrespective of public condemnations of the plan, it would not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[1028,1027],"class_list":["post-6766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-abdulaziz-yari","tag-governors-forum"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Delta-newsroom-logo1.png","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-1L8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6766"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6767,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6766\/revisions\/6767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}