The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has issued a statement denying reports of a N70,000 minimum wage payment to corps members.
NYSC’s Director for Information and Public Relations, Eddy Megwa, clarified that no directive has been received from the relevant government sector to increase the allowance of corps members.
Megwa stated that corps members, parents, and the public should be aware of the approved channel and mode of communication in the scheme and ignore misleading information.
The NYSC warned corps members not to allow mischief makers to mislead them and urged them to desist from spreading false information.
In 2020, the NYSC increased the allowances of corps members from N19,800 to N 33,000, following the signing of a new minimum wage bill of N30,000.
Recently, President Bola Tinubu signed the minimum wage bill into law, increasing the national minimum wage from N30,000 to N70,000.
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The signing of the bill was hailed as a promise kept by Tinubu, who had pledged to pay a living wage to Nigerian workers during his election campaign.
Recall that the new minimum wage follows months of negotiations between the government, labour unions, and the private sector.
Labour unions had initially proposed N494,000 as the new minimum wage, while the government offered N60,000.
After a series of negotiations, the workers demanded N250,000, and the government shifted grounds to N62,000.
Eventually, a consensus figure of N70,000 was reached, which will be reviewed every three years.
The new bill comes as the cost of living continues to soar in Nigeria, with the country’s inflation figure hitting 34 per cent in June 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
