A report on The Sun suggests that plans are on the way for President Muhammadu Buhari to meet with the leadership of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to determine the take home pay due to Nigerian legislators.
A source in the national assembly said Buhari has asked for “the official details of allowances and salaries collected by senators and representatives,” adding that, “the current economic realities in the country can no longer support bogus allowances”.
Meanwhile, plans by the senate to initiate a pay cut for members may have reached a dead end even before the debate on the matter takes off .
Although a ranking senator has said the issue of pay cut for members may have reached a dead end even before the debate on the matter takes off .
According to him, the recommendations of the senate adhoc committee on finance to reduce the pay cut of senators may be mere paperwork as there are legal hurdles to scale before it can be implemented.
He said: “The national assembly, being a bi-cameral legislature, needs to consult with the house of representatives…It’s impossible for the senate to cut allowances without the house of representatives doing same.
“Right now, there’s no legal basis to cut senators’ allowances…for instance, I have no right to cut the salary of a senator. Each senator can only take the decision to take a pay cut… This session runs between 2015 to 2019 and after that, when a new senator comes in, if he wants to cut his salary and allowances, he can do that; the senate cannot decide for him.
“It is now left to the RMAFC to decide on a realistic cut and propose it as a law to the National Assembly.”
The senator finally suggested that the proposed pay cut is illegal and it should not be forced down on the throat of the senators, adding that, “it should be voluntary and individually done”
Last month, the senate leader Ali Ndume, speaking on the issue in an interview said: “The N120 billion National Assembly annual budget is shared among units including 13 commissioners in the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC), the management arm of the National Assembly which has 3, 208 members and their salaries, allowances that are due to them are included, the management of the NASC itself has about 340 staff with their salaries, allowances and all.
“We also have 3,024 legislative aides, their salaries and their allowances are included. The National Institute of Legislative Studies (NILS), with its own board of 115 staff as at now, and the staff of the Public Accounts Committee and we also have 54 standing committees and you all know how we meet.
“If we are travelling, it is the committee that meets; all the money they spent, is coming from that N120 billion and the House of Representatives has about 91 committees.
“Yet, people would just sit down, take N120 billion and divide it by 109 Senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives to get the number. It is very unfair. But, then, what this committee is doing, the Ad-hoc committee is to slash our budget from N150 billion to N120 billion which involves all the afore-mentioned staff. Now, the committee would have to look at where and how do we cut.”
Meanwhile, a new report indicates that members National Assembly would be sharing about N12.9billion after two months in office. The lawmakers were said to have received this amount without passing a single bill.
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