By Amos Aar
THE TECHNICAL Adviser (TA) to Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State on Media, Publicity and Strategic Communication, Mr Solomon Iorpev, has dismissed speculations making the rounds on social media platforms that the governor has proposed to pay the state’s workers N40,000 as the state’s new minimum wage as against the national minimum wage passed by the National Assembly and signed into law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Also debunking the rumour is the secretary of the Benue State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Joshua Haruna Abimiku.
Social media posts, especially on Facebook, speculate that Governor Alia had during a meeting with workers about 3 days ago proposed N40,000.
The governor was said to have pointed out that the state government lacked the funds to implement N70,000; the offer which the publications alleged was outrightly rejected by the workers.
However, the TA, Solomon Iorpev, on Friday debunked the information, describing it as “fake news.”
“The 3 days ago already makes it fake news my dear brother. The governor has been in China since Monday so at what occasion did he approve 40k 3 days ago?”, Iorpev asked during a WhatsApp conversation with our correspondent on Friday.
The NLC state secretary, Comrade Abimiku, also corroborated Iorpev, saying during the negotiation, four different options were presented to the people but N40,000 was not among the options.
“What was put forward, and then I think, one is N70,000, the other is N75,000 and then N77,000. So, the one we opted for was that of the 75,000.
“Plans and all other arrangements have been concluded but we didn’t know why it was not implemented this month. But we are giving the government the benefit of the doubt. I mean, today is first of November already. So, this month it will be implemented as well.
“Nobody’s paying less. N40,000 is less than the national minimum wage and I don’t think any governor has even… That was in the past all those things. I saw those things circulating in the past but that information is not correct”, Comrade Abimiku said.
Asked whether the N75,000 negotiation was a recent one, Abimiku said: “Yes, all plans have been concluded; it’s implementation we are just expecting. We had hoped that it would come in that last month, but we don’t know why [the delay]. So, let’s hope that this month it would be implemented.”
