Business
THE ban of micro blogging social network site by the Federal Government last Friday brought a lot of claims and accusations by the citizenry.
One of the claims that made rounds after the announcement was that a bag of rice costs more than the minimum wage of Nigeria.
Verification
While a lot of people posted the information, it was discovered, through Hoaxy, which shows how information is shared, that the tweet on Twitter originated from Shawntomi with the handle @_Iamtomi who has over 21.9k followers.
Her tweet reads: “How can a bag of Rice be more than Minimum wage and to suspend Nigerians from using Twitter in Nigeria is their topmost priority?”
An hour after it was posted, it was retweeted 408 times, had 25 comments and 957 likes. However, as of 7th June, the tweet had 1.7k retweets, 3.5k likes and 79 comments.
Findings
In Nigeria, two different categories of rice are consumed. They are the foreign rice (which are imported rice) and local rice (which are locally produced and processed in Nigeria).
Despite the ban on imported rice by the Federal Government to encourage the patronage of locally processed rice, a lot of people still prefer the foreign rice which is usually expensive and cost more than the locally produced rice.
Market surveys revealed a bag of foreign rice costs from N34,000 to N37,000 depending on the quality of the foreign rice while the bag of the locally produced and processed rice costs from N28,000 to N30,000 per 50kg bag.
For the foreign rice 50kg bag, the price includes:
Mama Gold Thai parboiled rice: N34,000
Par Excellence parboiled rice – N32,000
Caprice – N33,000
Royal Stallion – N38,000
Mama Pride – N31,000
While the local rice 50kg bag, the price includes:
Big Bull – N29,000/N30,000
Local rice (without a specific name) – N27,000
Kantigi rice – N27,000/N28,000
Worker Salary
Nigeria has a government-mandated minimum wage. No worker in Nigeria can be paid less than this mandatory minimum rate of pay.
The Federal Government had increased the minimum wage from N18, 000 to N30,000 for workers in the civil service in 2019.
The minimum wage is the mandatory rate of pay for workers in the country.
Conclusion
A bag of 50kg of foreign rice is more than Nigeria minimum wage but a bag of 50kg of Nigerian rice is not more than the minimum wage of Nigerian workers.
However, there is no mention in the claim on the category of rice that is being referred to.
Going by the price of foreign rice in the market, one would say that a 50kg bag of rice costs more than Nigeria minimum wage.
And if one wants to go by the price of the Nigerian rice which people are trying to adapt themselves to, one would say that a bag of rice is almost at par with the minimum wage.
The Nation
– June 9, 2021 @ 18:40 GMT |
Tags: Fact-check: A bag of rice is indeed more than Nigeria’s minimum wage
