FG wage bill hits N4tn as Minimum Wage takes effect

Seven months after it began negotiations that ended with N70,000 as the new minimum wage, the Federal Government on Thursday began payment of the new salary and its consequential adjustments to public servants across all levels of the federal civil service, The PUNCH reports.

This means over 1.2 million civil servants on the payroll of the Federal Government will be paid the newly approved minimum wage in September.

A warrant for this month’s salary signed by the Accountant-General of the Federation, Dr Oluwatoyin Madein, and addressed to the Budget Office of the Federation directed the commencement of the new payment.

This was as documents obtained by The PUNCH from the National Income, Salaries and Wages Commission revealed the amount civil servants under the Consolidated Public Service Salary Structure would earn per cadre.

The amount was calculated per annum.

A breakdown showed that level one officers would now earn N930,000 per annum, level two N934,160. The salary figure increased to N937,713 for level three officers while grade level four officers now earn N950,243.

Grade Level five officers will earn N973,123, level six N1,041,786 per annum and level seven (N1,277,667).

Similarly, grade level eight public servants will now earn N1, 479,276, level nine officers will get N1, 641,226 per annum and level 10 will earn N1, 806,041.

For senior level officers, the document showed that Grade level 12 officers will now earn N2,007,152 per annum following the approval of the consequential adjustments.

While grade level 13 officials get N2,182,637, level 15 officials will get N2,358,936, and public servants on level 16 will receive N3,611,689 per annum.

Grade Level 17 officers, a position reserved for permanent secretary and the highest office in the civil service, will now earn N6,918,560.

One of our correspondents further observed that under every level, an amount was allocated for civil servants as salary, subject to change every year before their next promotion to the next level.

For instance, grade one level on step two public servant will earn N935,585, (N941,173) for step three, N946,859 for step four, N952,345 for step five,  N957,931 for step six, N963,518 for step seven, N969,104 for step eight, N974,690 for step nine, N980,270 for step 10, N985,863 for step 11, N991,449 for step 12, N997,035 for step 13, N1,002,621 for step 14 and N1,008,209 for step 15.

Confirming this, the Director of Press, OAGF, Bawa Mokwa, in an interview said, “The new minimum wage payment will begin from yesterday (Thursday) for this month.

“You can ask civil servants when they start getting alerts. You can confirm that. There is nothing on arrears payment yet. I don’t know anything about that. But payment is starting this month.”

A civil servant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, also confirmed the information, saying, “Yes, some people have started seeing it.”

According to the warrant, which contained a breakdown of all workers across various Ministries, Departments and Agencies, Armed Forces, Paramilitary, Federal Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges of Education, a total of 1,236,824 workers are included.

Recall that the Committee on Consequential Adjustments in Salaries for civil servants met on Friday as regards the new minimum wage template and agreed that the effective date for its implementation would be set at July 29, 2024.

President Bola Tinubu signed the new minimum wage into law July 29 after meeting with leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria.

The National Salaries and Wages Commission noted that the reason for setting the date of implementation to July 2024 was due to the fact that the President signed the bill into law in July.

The letter by the Accountant-General, which was dated September 24, 2024, read, “We hereby forward the September 2024 warrants requests for MDAs, retired heads of service and permanent secretaries, Nigeria Police, Military, Para-Military as well as tertiary institutions for your consideration and funding.

“Note that: The New National Minimum Wage as approved by Mr. President is implemented this September 2024. The 35 per cent and 25 per cent salary adjustment for staff on CONPSS, CONRAISS and CONPASS as approved by Mr. President is implemented this September 2024.

“One new MDA – FEDERAL UNIVERSITY TEACHING HOSPITAL WUKARI was created and payrolled this September 2024 with 239 staff count and gross amount of N52,322,098.82.”

“Attached are the hard and soft copies of the warrants for your approval and funding. Please accept the assurances of the warm regards of the Accountant-General of the Federation.”

In the breakdown attached, it was noted that the sum of N334,925,372,928.14 will be used to bear the cost for the over 1.2 million workers per month.

This means the government is expected to spend N4.019tn annually as its new wage bill.

Recall that the government had commenced additional revenue for the payment of the new minimum wage.

This development, which affected revenue distribution to states, was received with opposing views when an update on statutory allocation showed that the government transferred a sum of N200bn into the non-savings account at the August FAAC meeting, making a total of N595bn.

Reacting to the commencement of the new payment, the Organised Labour, comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress called on organisations and others to follow suit by starting payment of the new wage.

Benson Upah, spokesperson of the NLC and Tommy Etim, deputy president of the TUC, made these statements in separate interviews with one of our correspondents in Abuja.

Commenting on the matter, NLC’s Upah when asked if the development is a good move said, “Yes, I think so. We ask other entities to emulate this example.”

TUC’s Etim said, “FG’s committee on consequential adjustments already released a template, so, no one has any moral ground to delay the payment of the minimum wage. We now advise that all other parties follow suit and commence the payment of the new minimum wage.”

Another civil servant, who spoke to one of our correspondents on the consequential adjustment, said the increase was insufficient given the economic hardships caused by government policies.

The grade-level 12 officer said, “This salary increase I am seeing is too small compared to what we have faced in the last one year and the current economic hardship in the country. I think we have been deceived. Is this what we waited months for?”

Meanwhile, pensioners in the Southwest have insisted on its stand that organised labour should renegotiate the new minimum wage and renew its demand for a N250, 000 monthly salary in light of the current economic realities.

The Punch