By Dansu Peter
Rather than total new minimum wage for all worker in Nigeria, the Federal Government may consider increasing workers’ remuneration package, especially bonuses of certain government agencies, the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo has said.
Osinbajo according to a transcript made available to journalists in Abuja on Tuesday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, the Vice-President spoke during a session titled, ‘Conversation with the Vice-President’ at the 2017 Nigerian Bar Association National Conference held in Lagos on Monday.
Osinbajo said though the issue of better pay for workers was a good suggestion, the government was “in a bind of sorts.”
He said at the moment, the government was spending 70 per cent of its revenues on remuneration and overheads, leaving less than 30 per cent for capital expenditure.
He said while it was correct that the country needed a more efficient civil service that would be paid more, there was also the need to increase revenues.
Osinbajo said, “Sometimes, it is a chicken and egg situation because in order to increase revenues, we need to increase remuneration.
“I think that what we are probably going to end up doing is what we have done with some of the parastatals; in other words, identifying certain government services that must be remunerated differently in order to increase efficiency. One of the revenue generating agencies, for instance, is the Federal Inland Revenue Service.
“Improving remuneration, especially bonuses, would do a lot of good. That we saw happen in Lagos with the Lagos Inland Revenue Service, where because there were bonuses, there was improvement in revenue and reform. People were able to do better, even in our judicial system. Because we paid better; we remunerated better, people were able to improve.”
The Vice-President said the commitment of the present administration was to leave Nigeria with all the resources that could be brought to the table.
He said it was also the desire of the administration to leave the country with transparency and efficiency in all aspects.
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