Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on has criticised the non-payment of salaries of media practitioners by their employers and called for full debate on the whole orientation of media salaries.He noted this while declaring open the retreat of the State House Press Corps in Abuja with the theme “Journalists and Retirement Plans’’.
The vice president noted that to avoid the pains of working and going home without benefits all employees, not only of the media, should be compelled to join the government’s contributory pension scheme.
Prof Osinbajo stated that remunerations of media practitioners are poor because some employers have the penchant to cheat the workers and also because the private sector does not recognize minimum wage and there was the need to enforce some kind of adherence to minimum wage law by all employers rather than for civil servants alone.
Mr. Osinbajo also noted that media men were denied their salaries because the profession did not have entry point thus allowing non-professionals to overwhelm it.
“Anybody can basically enter into journalism,’’ he said as he advised the professionals to combat quackery “Generally speaking, people are poorly paid; professional associations should be strong lobbies for good pay and their engagement should be more robust,’’
Citing some pay challenges confronting other professionals, he noted that there was great disparity between what people earn and what they spend adding that the disparity should be corrected immediately.
The Chairman of the occasion and Nassarawa State Governor, Tanko Al-Makura, noted that journalists were not immune to the uncertainties surrounding retirement and should make the retirement state a stepping stone to higher heights.
The Guest Speaker and Chief Executive Officer of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Tony Elumelu, said that retirement plan was not based on age as both the young and old could plan ahead and invest to take care of the period.
He advised the correspondents to conceptualize what they would like to do after journalism and then start developing it little by little until it would grow to huge enterprise.
He, however, stated that whatever one choses to invest in, one must have the passion for it.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi and his Information counterpart, Lai Mohammed, graced the event.
News Credit: Premium Times
