The government of Kano state says it has stopped the payment of N30,000 minimum wage to its workers and has reverting to the old wage scale of N18,000.
Salihu Tanko-Yakasai, spokesperson to Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, said that owing to the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the state is unable to continue paying N30,000.
According to him: “The state government has reverted to the initial minimum pay due to the recession. What we are getting now as a government has reduced, and we can’t afford to pay the N30,000 minimum wage”.
President Muhammadu Buhari had in April 2019 signed the new minimum wage act into law, which stipulates N30,000 as the minimum wage following pressure by organised labour.
The Kano government had in December the same year agreed with its workers to commence the payment of the new minimum wage, while arrears of April-November, 2019, were to be settled in instalments.
But officials of the state civil service said the government did not inform them of the development, adding that they saw the deduction in their November and then December pay.
According to them, ‘nobody told us anything. The pensioners also had deduction in their pay and no reason has been given for this.”
