Whilst the employees rejoice over the good news that the lowest worker should be paid nothing less than five hundred thousand leones, the employers on the other hand are complaining about the stack realities on the ground which according to them would affect their businesses.
According to economists, good as the news is, it will have a far reaching negative economic consequences on the country as according them most people will end up losing their jobs if the new law is to be implemented to the letter.
Speaking to AYV the Acting Managing Director of the Hughes Security, Ms. Maria Johnson said her company is ready to go by the new law but however asked, “are our clients ready to increase their current pay per guard?” According to her, most of their clients cannot afford to pay a penny more and considering they have huge overhead cost to run the institution, they will be running at a loss if they are to pay every guard Le.500,000 or above.
“We are not alone, a lot of institutions like us are going to suffer great loss should their clients refuse to pay the corresponding increase,” she said.
Madam Johnson however stated that they are working on modalities to see how best they can maintain their staff and at the same time negotiate with their numerous clients in order to be able to meet their obligation.
It could be recalled that the President, Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma last year promised Sierra Leoneans that the minimum wage of every worker was going to be Le500,000 effective January this year. However, from what AYV has gathered lots of institutions are not going to be able to implement the new law without laying off a good number of their workers.
