May Day: We have complied with Minimum Wage Act, Uba Sani tells workers

From:Femi Oyelola in Kaduna

Governor Uba Sani has said that his administration has complied with the Minimum Wage Act because no civil servant in Kaduna State is earning less than N70,000.

The Governor, who reiterated his antecedents as a human rights activist, further said that the least-paid worker in Kaduna State is being paid N72,000 because he believes in the dignity of labor.

Addressing workers at Murtala Square, where Workers Day was celebrated yesterday the Governor said that he has been in the streets to agitate for the return of democracy and workers’ rights in the past.

Governor Uba Sani, however, acknowledged that what has not been resolved is the issue of incremental adjustment of salaries, promising that the issue will be resolved.

‘’I have been involved in the struggle for labor rights, workers’ rights. That is my antecedent. Because of my background, I sat down with the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress(NLC).

‘’I made it clear to them that though we have met the minimum wage requirement, there is something called incremental adjustment, which is discretionary.

‘’Because of my relationship with both NLC and TUC, I asked them that we should sit down and come up with a formula that will make every worker in Kaduna State happy, irrespective of his or her status, and they came up with three different options,’’ he disclosed.

The Governor promised that ‘’today I want to reaffirm to all of you here that by the grace of God, we will look at the incremental adjustment and ensure that even senior civil servants will benefit because we have to make our workers happy.’’

Governor Uba Sani further said that the upliftment of the living conditions of pensioners is of topmost priority to his administration, adding that last month, his government released N3.8 billion to settle outstanding gratuities, death benefits, and accrued rights under the Contributory Pension Scheme.

‘’Since the inception of our administration, we have paid cumulatively the sum of N10.4 billion in gratuity, death benefits, and accrued rights in the Contributory Pension Scheme,’’ he added.

According to him, the payment of such a huge sum to pensioners is unprecedented, adding that ‘’I’m happy that the Chairman of NLC has said that we inherited most of these problems.’’

 The Governor said that he has approved the recruitment of 1,800 medical personnel to strengthen the state’s Primary Health Care System and 3,000 teachers have also been employed to boost the capacity of public schools.

 He disclosed that three months ago, Kaduna State bagged the award of the best subnational in Primary Health Care in Nigeria because ‘’we are the only state that has  upgraded 180 of  our 255 PHCs to Level 2 status.’’