Some Nigerian senators on Monday made a case for the inclusion of domestic servants in the proposed N70,000 national minimum wage.
President Bola Tinubu in a meeting with organised labour in Abuja last week, approved N70,000 as the new national minimum wage for Nigerian workers. The presidency is, however, yet to forward the proposal to the National Assembly for deliberations and passage into law.
But at a public hearing on a bill seeking to domesticate and register domestic workers and their employers in Nigeria, senators held the view that domestic workers should be captured in the proposed new minimum wage.
The bill for the domestication and registration of domestic workers and their employers was sponsored by Babangida Hussaini, a senator representing Jigawa Northwest, and reviewed by the Senate committee on employment, labour, and productivity, chaired by Diket Plang.
The lawmakers emphasised the need to include domestic workers in the minimum wage scheme. Osita Izunaso, a senator representing Imo West, proposed plans to include domestic workers it in the minimum wage bill.
“As N70,000 is being planned as the least wage for the lowest public workers, so should it be for the least domestic workers. We are going to put it in the bill for implementation by all employers”, he said.
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Izunaso also suggested the modification of the bill’s focus from domestication and protection to the registration and protection of domestic workers and their employers.
Echoing this sentiment, Geraldeen Etuk, acting national president of the National Council for Women Society (NCWS), argued for the inclusion of domestic servants in the proposed minimum wage law.
However, the sponsor of the bill expressed reservations about the practical implementation of extending the minimum wage to domestic workers.
“There is no point making a law that cannot be implemented. But I’m happy that the generality of stakeholders at the public hearing supported the bill and, by extension, the proposed law.”
Diket Plang assured attendees that an agency would be established to oversee the implementation of the proposed law, with initial operations driven by the ministry of labour and productivity.
