The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, on Wednesday says the Federal Government approved a pay raise for civil servants in the country.

Ngige, a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme, said the pay raise was a peculiar allowance for civil servants in view of the current economic reality.

He explained that the money would help the government workers navigate through inflation, rising cost of living, hike in transportation fair, housing and electricity tariffs.

“The Federal Government is looking at giving people in the public service a pay raise to take care of the increased cost of living,” he said.

“In the Presidential Committee on Salaries, we have done something for the civil servants for those who are on Consolidated Public Service Salary Structure (CONPSS) and some corporations, MDAs that are on that CONPSS. CONPSS is the salary scale for civil servants.

“We put a percentage for the President to approve, we have approved it at our own committee level. We said it should take effect from January 1, 2023.”

According to the minister, the current administration has made provision for the increment of civil workers’ salaries in the 2023 budget.

During the interview, the Minister also spoke on the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), saying the policy has curbed insecurity and vote buying during the 2023 general elections.

He, however, admitted that the implementation of the policy was not smooth.