Information and culture minister Lai Mohammed has said that there was the need to revisit the abandoned media salary structure in order to ensure that government media professionals earn living wage.
The Minister underscored the need for upward review of the retirement age of journalists working in the ministry.
“They are like judges and university professors; like old wine, they get better with age,’’ he added.
At a thanksgiving reception by the new Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Culture, Ms Grace Gekpe, on Sunday in Abuja, he underscored the need for improved funding for the ministry and its agencies.
Mohammed, who was represented by Mr Bayo Onanuga, the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said that the ministry has a very big responsibility and there was the need for sufficient funding.
“The government is doing a lot of things, but it is being misrepresented by naysayers.
“This is the time that the government needed to raise an army of competent information managers to counter the false and negative narratives about the administration,’’ he said.
Praising the appointment of Gekpe, he said that the era of godfatherism in deciding appointments into key positions at the federal level was over.
Mohammed stated that appointment to positions in the Federal Government “is strictly by merit’’.
“Gone are those days when people were appointed into positions by other factors apart from merit,” he said. (NAN)
