The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
27 August 2008
editorial
Experts in economics at the University of Dar es Salaam are urging the Government to set a decent minimum wage for workers.
If effected, the proposed rate will be nearly twice the current Sh80,000 minimum pay in the private sector, and well over Sh100,000 in the Civil Service and elsewhere in the public sector.
Of course, the Government is under no obligation to strictly follow this advice and work on that basis. However, the research on which they based their recommendation was commissioned the ministry of Labour. And it is more credible than other initiatives that the Government has taken up in the past.
The credibility of this new survey can be seen against the backdrop of the numerous complaints late last year, when the Government announced minimum wages without having conducted any research or sought independent expert advice. It became a fiasco that had to be abandoned.
The Government had first given in to trade unions' demands and raised the wage from Sh65,000 to Sh350,000 on the basis of employers' ability to pay, but it was clearly unworkable.
The UDSM experts' proposal is a middle ground between the unions' proposal and the employers' offer. And in policy terms, it is more or less neutral between two large and hostile blocs of key interest groups.
But more importantly, it is such experts who should have provided the blueprint for policy action in the first place; not using up precious time listening to interest groups that will not even listen to their adversaries.
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