*Approves Amendment Of 2024 Budget
THE Senate, on Tuesday, July 23, passed the National Minimum Wage Act 2019 (Amendment Bill) after it scaled Second and Third Readings, shortly after it was transmitted by President Bola Tinubu.
In a unanimous vote after a clause consideration in the Committee of the Whole, the Bill scaled Third reading and was immediately passed.
Tinubu had earlier the same day transmitted the Bill to the National Assembly for consideration and passage in separate letters to the Senate and the House of Representatives, requesting speedy consideration to amend the National Minimum Wage Act, 2019, to increase the National Minimum Wage from N30,000 to N70,000, as already agreed with the organised Labour on Thursday, July 18, after a series of negotiations in the last few months.
Tinubu also requested a reduction of the time for periodic review of the national minimum wage from five to three years and related matters.
In a related development, the senate also approved the N6.2trillion amendment to this year’s Appropriation Act, thereby raising the budget from N28.7trillion to N35.055trillion .
The amendment for capital and recurrent expenditures made provisions for key infrastructure projects omitted in the earlier Act and the new national minimum wage.
Minister of Budget and National Planning, Mr. Atiku Bagudu, while addressing a House of Representatives’ Committee on Appropriation in Abuja, had explained that the supplementary budget would be used to pay the new wage, adding that the funds would be spent on stimulating the economy through the implementation of various infrastructural projects.
The projects include road, rail, water, irrigation and dam projects in this fiscal year with prudent utilisation of the funds, explaining that while N3trillion would be set aside for the new wage, the amendment would also provide counterpart funding for rail projects that had literally stopped for a while, including the Port Harcourt Main Bridge, which would traverse the rivers Imo, Enugu, Ebonyi, Anambra, Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau, Katsina, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe, and other parts of the country.
Bagudu also listed Badagry-Tin Can Port, Lekki Port, Lagos-Ibadan Standard Gauge and Kano-Marada Standard Gauge.
Some of the projects proposed in the supplementary budget include Lagos-Calabar road project, for which N150billion is required; Sokoto-Badagry road projects and the rail project, for which the Chinese government has provided 85 per cent funding, while the Federal Government was yet to provide the 15 per cent counterpart finance.
He stated that the Lagos-Calabar road, expected to start in three different sections, has commenced in Lagos, the Calabar end, and one additional section, Sokoto-Calabar, adding that it also covered the five Southeast states and Port Harcourt and Maiduguri rail lines, among other critical infrastructure across the country.
