Governor Seyi Makinde’s government in Oyo State has approved a minimum wage of N80,000 for the state’s workforce.
According to a statement by the State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Prince Dotun Oyelade, the State Government’s Technical Committee recommended and received approval from Governor Seyi Makinde for implementing the new salary scale.
As soon as the committee, which consists of representatives from the government and Labour, has finished the consequential adjustments process, this new scale will go into effect.
Prince Oyelade recalled that only last month, a Federal Government Agency, the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, in its latest employment statistics published for 2024, rated Oyo State as the most worker-friendly state in Southern Nigeria owing to a significant decline in the state’s unemployment rate following a series of high-pitched employment of workers in various sectors of the state.
The Commissioner also emphasized that Oyo State pays its workers salaries on the 25th of every month since Governor Makinde came into office in 2019.
He also said the governor started paying the previous ₦30,000 minimum wage from inception over four years ago, including consistent payment of pensions, gratuities and 13th-month salary for both workers and pensioners.
He recalled that since November 2023, Governor Makinde has been paying N25,000 to its workers and N15,000 to its pensioners as a welfare wage award.
The Information Commissioner noted that the Seyi Makinde administration started paying the wage award to cushion the effect of the Federal Government-induced fuel subsidy removal and has also been consistent with the payment for over a year, even to date.
Prince Oyelade reiterated that the Governor has paid the backlog of gratuities from 2008 to 2015 for pensioners, with an increase in gratuity payments for pensioners at both the Local Government Staff Pensions Board and those paid by the Ministry of Establishment and Training.
He added that the governor has also put back into payroll, pensioners whose names were removed by the immediate past administration and is giving all pensioners an annual Christmas/New Year chicken bonus.
