The Government of Adamawa State has said it has paid N32,000 minimum wage for the month of March despite income shortfall arising from the Coronavirus outbreak.
The government said only payment of consequential adjustments on minimum wage for senior civil servants have had to be suspended till the economic effects of Coronavirus wear off.
The Director-General, Media & Communications in the Government House, Yola, Mr Solomon Kumamgar, made the clarifications to newsmen Wednesday after an earlier press statement from him was interpreted to mean that the government had suspended payment of minimum wage.
Kumangar said, “As at now, workers have started receiving March salary alerts with the N32,000 minimum wage. It is only the consequential adjustment that the government was unable to implement due to the economic crunch imposed by the global pandemic COVID 19.”
The consequential adjustments, he further clarified, apply only to senior civil servants levels 07-17 who had been collecting minimum wage without pending consequential adjustments and who had now been asked to wait some more.
He said rather than suspending minimum wage in entirety, Adamawa had become the first state in the whole country to pay March salary “in line with Governor Ahmadu Fintiri’s practice of prompt payment of salaries.”
He restated government’s commitment to paying the suspended consequential adjustment “with the backlog/arrears as soon as global oil prices stabilise and the nation’s earnings pick up.”