Subsidy removal: Imo Gov increases minimum wage to N40,000

Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo state has increased the minimum wage of workers in the state to N40,000. The governor made this known while addressing state executive council members on Saturday, July 15. He said the current economic situation caused by the removal of fuel subsidy is biting hard on the people and that the increment in salaries is to help cushion the hardship civil servants in the state are facing due to the fuel subsidy removal.

In a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Oguwike Nwachukwu, Governor Uzodinma said his administration will give out soft loans, grants, and provide seedlings and farm tools to qualified farmers in the state.

“There shall be an immediate upward review of the salaries and wages of workers in the state. The minimum wage is at this moment raised to forty thousand naira (N40,000) with discretionary consequential adjustments. At least, your salaries would be able not only to take you home, but to also provide your basic necessities to enable you to make ends meet.

Apart from the free transport which the workers are already enjoying, I shall increase the fleet of buses carrying workers to and from work with ten more new buses. This is to ensure every nook and cranny of the state capital is captured in the routes that the buses ply, to bring the service closest to the doorsteps of every worker.

Also, plans have reached advanced level to recalibrate the tax system in Imo state, with Governor Uzodimma hinting that those who earn below N100,000 annually are likely going to be yanked off the State’s tax net.

I have discovered, with pain, how some traders are taking advantage of the economic situation to increase the prices of food items in the market.

The 52-year-old beauty queen and songwriter became Britain’s richest divorcee in 2021 when her billionaire husband, Ernesto Bertarelli, agreed to a £350 million settlement. She was also awarded a £52 million home in Switzerland.

The former Miss UK Kirsty Bertarelli recently hosted a joint birthday party with her new boyfriend in Sardinia.

The new couple are thought to have been a dating for some time.

Miss Bertarelli secretly divorced husband Ernesto, with whom she has three children, in October 2021 after 21-year marriage.

A friend of Miss Bertarelli said she had been ‘through the mill’ but is now in a better place with ‘close friends, a new younger man, and a bulging bank balance’

Before their divorce, the couple were jointly listed in 14th place in last year’s Sunday Times Rich List with a fortune estimated at a staggering £9.2billion.

In addition to her settlement, she has been given a spectacular modern house by Lake Geneva in Switzerland bought this year for £52million. She also owns an £8million chalet in the Swiss ski resort of Gstaad.

Kirsty, who was crowned Miss UK in 1988, came as second runner-up in that year’s Miss World pageant.

Mrs Bertarelli was represented by Baroness (Fiona) Shackleton, the lawyer known as the Steel Magnolia who represented Prince Charles and Sir Paul McCartney in their divorces. She is believed to have signed a prenuptial agreement before marrying Italian-born Bertarelli in 2000.