At a time Nigerians are groaning under the yoke of
recession, Members of theNational 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 theHouse 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 inNaira 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.
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