THE NEED TO URGENTLY ADDRESS THE PAY DISPARITY AMONG VARIOUS EMPLOYEES IN THE NIGERIAN PUBLIC SECTOR

BY HARUNA IDRIS

Over THE years, disputes over pay have become legion in the nations annals. Various Trade unions have canvassed for pay increases based on their estimation of the worth of their labor. Many of them have also actively craved for separate salary scales and have succeeded in this endeavor. This crusade has resulted in many trade disputes with some leading to protracted strikes with adverse consequences for the nation and its fledgling economy.
The consequence of this clamor is that the nation now has a multiplicity of pay scales resulting in a huge disparity among the workforce. While this disparity may be acceptable between workers in the private and public sectors, it is certainly not acceptable among those in the public service who essentially perform similar and overlapping roles.
In most advanced economies, there is in place comprehensive wage policies under which collective bargaining takes place and under this mechanism they also ensure that whatever wage packages are agreed upon do not dislocate the economy of the nation. As a result, salary scales vary between the public and private sectors, but even here the difference is not that significant within the economic variables in each particular nation. It is unheard of to have very significant differentials among employees in the public sector as is the current case in Nigeria. What we rather see are peculiar allowances to take care of the professional exigencies of the various trades.
However in Nigerian there has been an absence of any discernable wage policy to guide collective bargaining. The result is a multiplicity of wage packages especially within the public sector. Various trade unions have over the years been allowed to brow beat the government to accede to their peculiar wage demands under the pretext that their jobs are different from the normal civil service schedule. While this is a valid argument, that does not account for the excessive wage differentials between public service workers.
An example can be seen where the lowest worker in a governmental establishment earns about 18 thousand naira per month while his counterpart in another governmental establishment earns 60 thousand naira. The same example applies for fresh graduates in some public establishment earning 35 thousand naira while a counterpart in another public establishment earning 150 Thousand naira. This is best seen in the wage differentials between workers in the federal government media houses and their counterparts in other government establishments.
This scenario cannot augur well for a developing economy like Nigeria’s. The concomitant effect is to dislocate the economy and retard productivity. It also has immense potential to trigger corruption.
Wage policies can make a positive contribution towards a more sustainable economic and social model. In this regard, the connection between wages and higher productivity cannot be under emphasized.
Government must take a holistic look at the nations wage policies with a view to immediately addressing the problem of huge differentials in wages especially among employees in the public sector. It is gratifying that government has taken some steps in the recent past to address this anomaly. The last pay increase approved by the federal government attempted to correct some of these problems. The recent submission of the report by a committee set up by the government to remedy this defect must be quickly implemented.
There is a need for policy makers to ensure that wages and income policies are developed within a broader regulatory framework where different policy elements are carefully articulated in a consistent and coherent manner. That way, no segment of the nation’s workforce will feel shortchanged or tagged as inferior. It is a fact that no part of a nation’s workforce can be tagged as less important than another. It is in the seamless operation of the entire gamut of a nation’s labor force that is reflected in the booming economies of the Far East and the west.

SOURCE: RECORDED LIVE FROM FRCN DAILY COMENTARY