By Merit Ibe
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has urged President Bola Tinubu to keep his promise to assist the Organised Private Sector (OPS) and the sub nationals in the implementation of the new approved minimum wage of N70,000.
Commending the President for the breakthrough, Director General of MAN, Segun Ajayi-Kadir, said during the negotiations, the OPS had intimated the committee with the challenges confronting businesses in the private sector, adding that there was the need to ameliorate those challenges in order to improve the capacity of OPS members to pay the minimum wage offered.
“We maintained that those binding constraints may constitute impediments to the full compliance of our members when the minimum wage is signed into law,” he noted.
Emphasising that the OPS was looking forward to the promised assistance, the MAN boss noted that the assumption is that the President would give expedited consideration to those challenges and take necessary steps to address them, adding that this will go a long way in on-boarding the private sector in the new agreement on the minimum wage.
President Tinubu has approved a new minimum wage of N70,000 for Nigerian workers and pledged to review the national minimum wage law every three years.
The President also promised to find ways to assist the private sector and the sub-nationals to pay the minimum wage.
“We commend Mr President for achieving this breakthrough and look forward to the promised assistance.
“On the side of the private sector, we should hold on to the promise of Mr President that the federal government will find a way to assist us to pay the minimum wage agreed with Labour. In this regards, I would assume that reference would be made to the demands made by the Organised Private Sector at the concluding stage of the tripartite negotiations.”
The DG reeled out a list of demands presented to include that SMEs and MSMEs should be exempted from compliance in view of their incapacity and prevailing operational challenges.
“CBN redemptions of all validly transacted outstanding forex forwards for companies in the productive sector. The reversal of increase in electricity tariffs OR only 100 per cent increase in electricity tariff for minimum of 20 hours of supply. Duty exemption on imported conversion kits and government subsidy on procurement of same. A freeze on introduction of new taxes on businesses for the next five years
“Fixed rate of N800 for the assessment of import duty on all production inputs. “Revisit of the recent Financial Reporting Council regulation to curtail its application to private businesses.
“Discontinuation of the Price Verification Portal as it is inimical to the smooth operation of businesses and the basis for setting it up no longer exist. This has been implemented by the CBN.” He was optimistic that the positive atmosphere created by the recent agreement between government and Labour would facilitate speedy consideration and acceptance of the demands.