Ondo promises to pay N70,000 minimum wage

The Ondo State Government, on Tuesday, expressed its readiness to pay the N70,000 national minimum wage to the state civil servants.

The state Head of Service, Mr. Bayo Philip, stated this while speaking in his office, in Akure, the state capital.

The minimum wage was approved by President Bola Tinubu after a series of negotiations with the organised labour unions in the country.

According to him, the state governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, had repeatedly assured all that his administration would not do anything less than whatever is approved by the Federal Government as the national minimum wage for workers.

He noted that the state government also extended the gesture to retirees and workers in all state-owned tertiary institutions as a way to ameliorate the current economic situation in the country.

He said, “Before the bill was assented to by the President, the governor had given his words that Ondo State would pay whatever minimum wage may be agreed upon and assented to by Mr. President.

“As I speak, we are doing all the preliminaries, that as soon as the details of the salary table for the minimum wage is out, we will be at it, and I know for sure that the state will implement it without delay.”

On the nationwide #EndBadGovernance protest in the country, Philip said the people of the state could not protest against themselves as they had seen Aiyedatiwa’s government as theirs.

“Here, no one is protesting. Not the youths, not the market women, not the students, not the public servants. As you can observe, we are in our various offices carrying out our statutory duties and there is tranquillity across the state.

“The reason is that we have a governor who is in touch with the feelings and aspirations of the people. A governor who is well-connected with the people. In fact, the government that is being run in Ondo State is the government owned by the people themselves. So we cannot organise a protest against ourselves,” the HoS stressed.