Level of income should determine minimum wage – El-Rufai

Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai has said that minimum wage should be done by each state according to its level of income.

He stated this at the 2018 National Peer Learning event organised by the Nigeria Governors Forum (Forum) titled mobilising domestic finance for development in Abuja.

El-Rufai, while emphasizing that personal income tax should be collected by the states, stressed the need for the constitution to be reviewed so that some items can be removed from the legislative list.

Responding to a question on why Personal income tax should be given to states, he said “I agree with you completely that in a federation there should be taxes that are national while others are sub-national.

“But if you look at our history you will see that we come from civilian-military regimes and many of these personal income taxes Act were done by the military.

“Just like for instance I do not agree that national minimum wage should be under the federation, I think minimum wage should be done by each state according to the level of income.

“If you look at the 1963 constitution, minimum wage was not in the inclusive list, it was added during the military rule.

“There are number of laws that were enacted during the military rule and there is a need to look at them and do something about them.”

On his part, Kwara State Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed said the current situation in the country calls for the states to increase the revenue generating capacities because it is clear that the new minimum wage is coming with an added responsibility.

He added that the current revenue profile is not likely to carry the new minimum wage.

He said, “So I think as much as we are looking at the minimum wage issue, which of course we feel is imperative at this time.

“It should also be looked at alongside the capacities to generate revenue and that is why this platform that has been created by the Nigeria Governor’s forum serves a good one for us to see on a peer review platform how best practices can be beenchmarked across all states and increase our capacity to generate revenue.”