Edo state government has raised the minimum wage for workers on its payroll from N30, 000 to N40, 000, Governor Godwin Obaseki announced yesterday.
He made the wage increase to curb the effects of the rising cost of living in a statement.
Besides, the workers have been permitted work from home twice a week and show up in the office three days per week.
The measures were taken as the state’s immediate response to the stoppage of petrol subsidy payment by the Federal Government, which pushed up food costs and petrol price.
In the statement signed by the governor, the government said: “If more allocation accrues to our State from the Federal Government in view of the expected savings occasioned by the removal of the fuel subsidy.
“The Edo State Government shares the pains of our people and wants to assure everyone that we are standing with them in these very challenging times.
“We want to reassure our people that we will do all within our powers as a sub-national government to reduce the pains and ameliorate the sufferings our people are currently facing due to the current realities.
“As a proactive government, we have since taken the step to increase the minimum wage paid to workers in Edo State from the approved N30, 000 to N40, 000, the highest in the country today.”
On the reduction of the number of work days for civil servants, Obaseki said his government was aware of the hardship the removal of petrol subsidy has caused.
The governor said: “The government policy has radically increased the cost of transportation, eating deep into the wages of workers in the state.
“Therefore, the Edo State Government is hereby reducing the number of work days that civil and public servants will have to commute to their workplaces from five days a week to three days a week till further notice. Workers will now work from home two days every week.”
