Saturday, June 8, 2024 -A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Delta State, Sunny Onuesoke has said the solution to Nigeria’s economic problem is not an increase in minimum wage but deflation of the economy.
He made the assertion in a phone interview
with our correspondent in his reaction to the imbroglio between the federal
government and labour unions in the country.
Onuesoke said the increment of wages will
not solve the economic problem in the country but it will rather increase it.
Nigerians
are getting it wrong. What Nigeria want is deflation. If you increase the
salary to one million Naira today, the prices of goods and services will keep
increasing.
“The
more you increase the minimum wage, the more it goes ‘pari pasu’ with the
increase of goods and services. The average person who is not in the civil
service but produces food items like pepper, tomatoes, yam, garri etc will
increase his produce.”
According
to Chief Onuesoke, ”Wage increase cannot resolve the inflation rate because as
there is more salary increase, there is more currency circulating in the
system. When there is more currency flow in the system, the prices of goods and
services will keep increasing. It is a simple economic theory. The more
increases in workers’ salaries, the more you will build up the high inflation
rate.
“The
country is not being controlled by only civil servants alone. The civil servant
is just 14% of those providing services in Nigeria. They are an insignificant
margin. When you are thinking of civil servants, the private sectors are not
addressed as civil servants. There is no private sector that will be able to
pay that amount of money as salary monthly.”
He said
what Nigerians need right now is the reduction of the inflation rate to the
extent that even if a worker is receiving N20,000 thousand as minimum wage, he
should be able to pay his rent and take care of other responsibilities
comfortably.
He also
urged the federal government to intensify building low-cost houses for the
common man, subsidise them and mortgage the same for the period of their
lifetime as a way to reduce the inflation rate.
“The
people need social infrastructure that will downsize, that will deflate, that
will reduce the hard side of their hardship. What I am saying is that the
Federal Government and state governors should intensify massive agricultural
and housing programmes. They should subsidise and reduce the cost of education.
Health insurance should be all-embracing.
“Our
problem is that we are giving projections without knowing the database of
Nigerians. If you ask our leaders how many acres of land will produce a certain
quantity of cassava, they don’t know it. But they go on air to produce certain
figures borrowed from armchair economists.
“Each
local government should be able to have 80,000 acres of cassava farmland. Yam,
maize, rice etc. They should fix the refineries. What stops the country from
fixing the four refineries till tomorrow? Is it a problem to fix the
refineries? Why are we importing refined products and we are the number six
oil-producing country in the world”.
The
increase in the minimum wage is an addition of two thousand naira which the
Federal Government said is above their initial offer of sixty thousand naira.
The
labour union had stepped down their demands from four hundred and ninety-four
thousand Naira ₦494,000
to ₦250,000 per month.
Both parties have not arrived at any conclusion on the matter.
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