Manufacturers outline demands as Tinubu raises minimum wage 

The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria has presented several demands to President Bola Tinubu to enable its members to pay the newly approved minimum wage of N70,000.

MAN pointed out in a statement on Thursday that the final outcome of the tripartite committee comprising the government, labour and the private sector was a stalemate at N62,000 offered by the federal government and the private sector as against N250,000 by labour.

“We should hold on to the promise of Mr. President that the federal government will find a way to assist us to pay the minimum wage agreed with Labour. In this regards, I would assume that reference would be made to the demands made by the Organised Private Sector at the concluding stage of the tripartite negotiations.”

MAN said it had intimated the committee with the challenges confronting businesses in the private sector and that there was the need to ameliorate them in order to improve the capacity of its members to pay the minimum wage they offered. 

“So, the assumption is that Mr. President will give expedited consideration to those challenges and take necessary steps to address them. This will go a long way in onboarding the private sector in the new agreement on the minimum wage,” it said.

The association demanded that micro, small and medium enterprises should be exempted from compliance in view of their incapacity and prevailing operational challenges.

It wants the Central Bank of Nigeria to redeem all validly transacted outstanding foreign exchange forwards for companies in the productive sector.

MAN said the increase in electricity tariffs should either be reversed or only a 100% hike in electricity tariff for a minimum of 20 hours of supply.

It called for duty exemption on imported conversion kits and government subsidy on procurement.

The group wants a freeze on introduction of new taxes on businesses for the next five years and a fixed rate of N800 for the assessment of import duty on all production inputs. 

It demanded a revisit of the recent Financial Reporting Council regulation to curtail its application to private businesses.

“We are optimistic that the positive atmosphere created by the recent agreement between government and Labour would facilitate speedy consideration and acceptance of  aforementioned,” MAN said.