Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State has increased the minimum wage for the state civil servants to N40000.
The new wage was announced on Sunday, May 1 during the Workers’ Day celebration in Benin City, the Edo State capital.
In his workers’ day speech made available to newsmen, Obaseki reassured civil servants in the state of his government’s commitment to their welfare.
He promised to prioritise Edo workers and equip them with the capacity to deliver quality service.
According to him, “As we all know, the minimum wage of N30000 can barely sustain a family. It will be immoral and mindless of us to continue to pretend that we do not know that our workers are suffering,” he said.
Obaseki added: that “The government of Edo has now decided to review the minimum for Edo workers from N30000 to N40000 a month. Undoubtedly, Edo is the first state since the current outbreak of coronavirus to take this initiative.”
He added that, “Even though we would have loved to pay more, we hope that this little adjustment would enable us to cushion the impact of the inflation that we are faced with. There is no doubt that the financial implications will be heavy and put another burden on the government.
“But as a government, we are prepared to make the sacrifices so that the workers can live a better life. Your welfare is our number one priority.”
Governor Godwin Obaseki also approved payment of harmonised pension from May 2022 in line with an agreement reached with pensioners.
He noted that he is carefully paying attention to the senior citizens because they are one of the most vulnerable in society.
“We took interest in payments of outstanding pensions to our pensioners even though these pensions were held by the previous administration,” Obaseki said.
“Given the prevailing economic circumstances, I have now approved, effective this May, the agreement we reached with the Union of Pensioners that the harmonized amount would be paid from May 2022,” he added.
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