Oyo State governor, Engr Seyi Makinde has approved payment of N80,000 as minimum wage for the state workforce.
The state’s Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Prince Dotun Oyelade, who disclosed this, said the technical committee set up by the state government recommended and got approval from Governor Makinde for the implementation of the new salary scale.
According to him, this new scale will be implemented as soon as the consequential adjustments process is completed by the committee which comprises of government and labour top officials.
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 the whole of southern Nigeria owing to a significant decline in unemployment rate following a series of high-pitched employment of workers into various sectors of the state.
The commissioner also emphasised 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 N30,000 minimum wage from inception over four years ago, including consistent payment of pensions, gratuities and 13th month salary for both workers and pensioners alike.
Prince Oyelade 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-led 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 till date.
Oyelade also reiterated that the Governor has paid the backlog of gratuities from 2008-2015 for pensioners with increase in gratuity payment 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 had also put back into payroll, pensioners whose names were removed by the immediate-past administration and giving all pensioners annual Christmas/New Year Chicken Bonus.
