•Chukwuma Soludo
The Anambra State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, has announced the immediate payment of the new minimum wage of N70,000 for workers in the state.
The governor stated that the least paid worker in Anambra State will go home with nothing less than N70,000, even as, it could be more ranging between N78,000 to N84,000, depending on the outcome of the tabulation by the government team, reports Saturday PUNCH.
This was announced after a meeting between various labour leaders in the state and the state government held at the Governor’s Lodge, Amawbia, late yesterday.
Soludo also approved a monthly cash award of N10,000 to all pensioners in the state, until a time the pension salary shall be reviewed.
“This interim cash award was necessitated on my goodwill and empathy on the situation of the pensioners who nobody remembers in all the noise about new minimum wage.
“The state government is committed to a better secured Anambra. The state in days to come shall take delivery of hundreds of security vehicles for the vigilante groups and other security agencies even as other security measures are being negotiated.
“We urged workers to think positively about contributory pension scheme to save themselves of pension agonies. The earlier the state workers return to Contributory Pension scheme, the better for them,” the governor added.
Members of the Organised Labour leaders were led by the Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Humphrey Nwafor and Trade Union Congress Chairman, Chris Ogbonna. The Chairman, Anambra JNC, Edith Onwuka was there too.
The unions represented by their labour leaders include the NUJ, JUSUN, NULGE, NUT, NUP, among others.
While the state government team also had the Secretary to the State Government, Head of Service, Auditor-General of the State, Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Commissioner for Finance and Chief of Staff, among others.
Reacting, the NLC Chairman, Humphrey Nwafor, said the governor made the negotiations easier by the approvals and thanked him for being “worker friendly”, even as he requested him to always do more for Anambra workers as a father.
The NLC Chairman also announced that the governor had donated a land for the construction of the NLC state secretariat known as Workers House which was impossible since 1991 Anambra was created, describing it as unprecedented.
