The Trade Union Congress (TUC) says increasing the minimum wage for civil servants from N30,000 to N615,000 won’t worsen Nigeria’s inflation rate which stood at 33.20% as of March 2024.

“If you look today, from May 2023 to date, revenue from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) to the state governments has tripled,” TUC President, Festus Osifo, said on Channels Television’s Morning Brief breakfast programme on Wednesday.

“This means the state government has more money to build roads and schools to purchase other items.

“The most critical aspect of production is labour. It is for you to take part of the money and pay workers. That won’t increase inflation because the money will be spent anyway; if you don’t give it to workers, it will be spent on other projects.

“Giving workers what is due them won’t necessarily worsen inflation.”

The TUC boss said the Organised Labour proposed N615,000 as the new minimum wage for workers to confront current socio-economic realities, a view backed by his counterpart in the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero. (Channels TV)