My monthly salary is N942,000, and I receive no benefits, says Ngige

He claims that the trip reimbursement that ministers receive, along with that of permanent secretaries and others, was recently examined.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, has revealed that his and other ministers’ monthly salaries are N942,000 after tax, despite cries for a necessary rise in the N30,000 national minimum wage.

Ngige added that ministers receive no benefits other than duty reimbursement for travel expenses on Monday’s Politics Today on Channels Television.

“My monthly pay is N942,000. My wage with my PA is the gross amount after taxes. My feeding, my transportation, the transportation of one PA, my gardener’s salary, and my cook’s income are also combined. They give me N942,000 after paying a lot of taxes.

“Every minister you see makes that; special advisers also make about that much.” The allowances are nothing; we don’t offer any further benefits save travel benefits. Like any other public officer, you are eligible for duty tour allowance, Ngige added.

He continued by saying that the travel expenses paid by ministers, as well as those paid by permanent secretaries and others, had just been examined.

It was changed to N100,000 for a minister, and I believe N75,000 for ministers of states, N70,000 for permanent secretaries, and so on. Level one involved reviewing everyone else’s work in addition to our own, he stated.

When asked why the government had not been able to lower the nation’s unemployment rate, which increased to 33.3% in 2021, Ngige said that job creation was the responsibility of both the public and private sectors.

He also attributed the rise in unemployment to a drop in foreign direct investment.

There, Ngige said, “the point is that creating jobs is a cross-cutting thing; it is not only for the public sector to do.”

“Everyone believes that the government is the source of job creation: ‘If we don’t work in a federal ministry or government agency, we have no employment.’ No, there is a private sector.

The minister outlined the businesses and workplaces in the private sector that use agriculture and other industries to generate employment.

“The government cannot handle this issue alone. And I’m telling you right now that if the economy isn’t doing well, there won’t be enough money in the system to encourage the creation of jobs. The decline in foreign direct investment is the issue, he continued.