Following the approval of N70,000 as the minimum wage for Nigerian workers by President Bola Tinubu, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has demanded certain concessions from the government
According to a statement signed by the director–general of MAN, Segun Ajayi-Kadir, the association said the private sector would hold on to the promise of Mr. President that the Federal Government will find a way to assist the private to pay the minimum wage agreed with Labour.
“In this regard, I would assume that reference would be made to the demands made by the Organised Private Sector at the concluding stage of the tripartite negotiations”
“We had intimated the committee with the challenges confronting businesses in the private sector and that there was the need to ameliorate those challenges to improve the capacity of our members to pay the minimum wage that we offered.
We maintained that those binding constraints may impede our member’s full compliance when the minimum wage is signed into law.”
“So, the assumption is that Mr. President will give expedited consideration to those challenges and take necessary steps to address them. This will go a long way in onboarding the private sector in the new agreement on the minimum wage. “
“To this end, we presented a list of demands including the following,”
1) SMEs and MSMEs should be exempted from compliance given their incapacity and prevailing operational challenges.
2) CBN redemptions of all validly transacted outstanding forex forwards for companies in the productive sector.
3) The reversal of increase in electricity tariffs OR only a 100% increase in electricity tariff for a minimum of 20 hours of supply.
4) Duty exemption on imported conversion kits and government subsidy on procurement of same.
5) A freeze on the introduction of new taxes on businesses for the next five years
6) Fixed rate of N800 for the assessment of import duty on all production inputs.
7) Revisit of the recent Financial Reporting Council regulation to curtail its application to private businesses.
8) Discontinuation of the Price Verification Portal as it is inimical to the smooth operation of businesses and the basis for setting it up no longer exists. This has been implemented by the CBN.