The Nigerian federal government is developing a controversial new wage system for civil servants that would tie their pay directly to productivity metrics, rewarding top performers with higher salaries while punishing those who underperform.
The Director-General of the National Productivity Centre, Nasir Raji-Mustapha, disclosed this during a meeting with Labour correspondents.
The proposal aims to create powerful financial incentives to boost worker output and efficiency as a way to catalyze greater economic growth in Africa’s largest economy.
The new pay-for-performance model would require employers to meticulously track data on individual employees’ output and productivity against specific benchmarks and targets.
Workers who exceed those goals could see salary increases, while those who miss the marks risk stagnant wages or even pay cuts.
Administration officials argue such a model is sorely needed to shake up Nigeria’s sluggish productivity growth and create a pay structure aligned with a competitive, high-performance workforce.
