Ayuba Wabba, the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has urged the Federal Civil Service to review salaries and welfare of public servants.
He spoke in Abuja during a meeting of the National Public Service Negotiating Councils attended by the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Folasade Yemi-Esan.
The theme of the meeting was ‘Labour/Government Relations in the Post COVID-19 Era’.
Wabba commended the Federal Government for the implementation of the N30, 000 minimum wage.
“Minimum wage is a service wide issue. There’s difference between review of salaries and minimum wage in the public service. The civil servants, particularly those in the core ministries, departments and parastatals are actually the least paid. And I think we have every reason to try to encourage them because they are the drivers of government policies and programmes,” he said.
Responding, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation said there could be consequences if salaries are reviewed upward.
She said at a meeting she had with Vice President Yemi Osibanjo last week, the latter “put a caveat that by the time we raise the salary of civil servants, they must be ready to sit up and do the work that is expected of them. Because there is going to be sanction and consequences, so we need to understand that.”
She noted that the government had constituted a committee on the harmonisation of the salaries of both public and civil servants.
She said the committee was also saddled with responsibility of comparing what the private and public sector workers earn to forestall short-changing the public sector workers.
