The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has said the state governments have the financial capacity to pay the proposed National Minimum Wage, when it is eventually passed into law.

He stated this on Monday at a retreat organized by the National Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies in Abuja.

The Senate President, who was represented by Chairman of the Senate Committee on Employment, Labour, and Productivity, Senator Diket Plang noted that some state governments failed to pay the expired national minimum wage, said they have to implement the new one after it was passed by the National Assembly.

Also, speaking, the Speaker House of Representatives, Rt.Hon Tajudeen Abbas, who was represented by the Chairman, House Committee on Labour and Productivity, Adegboyega Adefarati, described the poor remuneration as one of the main causes of corruption in the country.

Poorly paid workers are highly susceptible to corrupt inducements and pressures, he said.

He pledged that the 10th National Assembly had firmly resolved to see to the expeditious resolution of the new minimum wage matter as soon as possible.

According to the Director General of NILDS, Professor Abubakar Sulaiman, the retreat was organised for the chairmen and members of the National Assembly committees on employment, labour and productivity in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Sulaiman also said stakeholders drawn from the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC); the Trade Union Congress (TUC); the Nigerian Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) were part of the event.