The Federal Government on Wednesday said it would set up a committee to dialogue with the Nigeria Labour Congress over contentious issues, including workers’ demand for N52, 200 per month minimum wage.Skip to next paragraphPhoto fileMinister of Labour and Productivity, Mr. Adetokunbo Kayode, (SAN)The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode, announced this just as the NLC and civil society groups staged a peaceful rally in Lagos to also press for the reversal of the deregulation of the downstrean sector and the adoption of the Natioanl Electoral Reform Committee.Kayode, who spoke after the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja, said that through the talks, the government would place the average Nigerian worker at par with his or her counterparts in other parts of the world.The minister said, “Government will set up a committee to sit down with labour to discuss the issue of minimum wage.“We will ensure that the average worker in Nigeria is put at par with any other worker anywhere in the world.”His counterpart in the Information and Communication Ministry, Prof. Dora Akunyili, said that the FEC also approved a Draft Employees Compensation bill, which, if passed into law, would ensure that workers who suffered injuries or disabilities in the course of their jobs, received compensation, treatment, or rehabilitation, where necessary.She explained that the council approved the bill because the existing Workers Compensation Act was outdated.“The Workers Compensation Act is now obsolete and out of tune with international labour standard”, Akunyili said, adding that the council approved the new bill “in order to align it with international best practice and standards.”“The bill, when passed into law, will benefit not only government but workers in particular, as it allows for long term follow-up to ensure that the injured worker is treated to the end and rehabilitated where necessary,” she said.Explaining further, Kayode described the approval of the new bill as a revolutionary act by the FEC.He said, “Before today, what we have operating in our country is the Workers Compensation Act; today the Federal Government has approved a bill to replace that primitive regime which the old law represented.“In the new bill, the average Nigerian worker has a universal insurance coverage for compensation and rehabilitation if he is injured or, dead. As at today that does not exist.”The minister explained that the new bill provided for automatic compensation for workers.Noting that “most companies find it difficult to pay compensation under the old Act,” Kayode assured Nigerians that “as from now” relevant agencies of government, such as the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund, would pay workers and then recover the money from the concerned company or companies.However, he noted that the 10 per cent compensation provided by the new bill was among the lowest in Africa .This, he explained, was due to the size of the country, but he added that the rate would be raised with time.Kayode in the same vein commended the NLC for engaging in what he described as a peaceful rally.He said, “Today, we know that labour went on a national rally for which I am really happy that everything went peacefully as they promised us and as we expect of them as matured people.”The minister went ahead to stress that the President Umaru Yar’Adua administration had demonstrated its commitment to the welfare of Nigerian workers by taking up the issue of compensation, which he described as the most critical among three demands of the NLC.
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