National Assembly, Abuja
At a time Nigerians are groaning under the yoke of recession,
Members of the National Assembly (NASS) comprising the Senators and
Members of House of Representatives have received a total sum of N6.78
billion as their official salaries and allowances in one year,
investigation by Economic Confidential has revealed.
The report obtained by Economic intelligence magazine showed the
‘legitimate’ remuneration of the federal legislators in compliance to
the statutory approval of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and
Fiscal Commission (RMAFC). The remuneration packages include: annual
salaries, accommodation, vehicle maintenance and fuel, Personal
Assistants, House maintenance, domestic staff, entertainment and
utilities allowances. Others allowances are; Constituency allowance,
Annual Leave, Hardship allowance, wardrobe, newspapers and
responsibility allowances.
A careful scrutiny of the report shows that each Senator has an
annual salary of N2.02m while a member of the House of Representative
receives N1.98mn as annual basic salary. The basic salary of the Senate
President is N2.48mn while that of the Speaker of House of Rep is
N2.47mn. The Deputy Senate President has N2.30mn as annual basic salary
while his counterpart, Deputy Speaker earns N2.28mn annually.
In addition to the annual basic salary, each member of the National
Assembly receives 200 percent of the annual salary for accommodation,
75 percent for vehicle maintenance, 25 percent for Personal Assistants, 5
percent for house maintenance, 75 percent for domestic staff, 30
percent for both entertainment and utilities. Others are, 25 percent for
wardrobe, 15 percent for newspapers and responsibility allowance of
between 10, 7, and 5 percent respectively as the case may be on the
position of the legislator. While each senator receives a whopping 250
percent for constituency allowance, member of House of Representative
gets 100% for the same annually.
In all the senate alone numbering 109 senators gulped the sum of
N1.85billion in the last one year, while the 360 members of the House of
Representatives got N4.93 billion!
According to estimates from the report, there are Non-Regular
allowances federal legislators are entitled to. They include furniture
and severance gratuity which are due only once in four years. Other
non-regular allowances include Estacode allowances which is paid in US
Dollars for foreign trips and Duty Tour allowance which is paid in Naira
for local trips within Nigeria.
Further analysis by Economic Confidential reveals that an average
Nigerian worker with a minimum wage of N18,000 a month will have to work
for four years before earning the utility allowance for one legislator.
Unless the remuneration package is reviewed downward or upward by the
Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, the legislators
will continue to enjoy the current official salaries and allowances.
Source: SaharaReporters
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