The National Assembly
• Senator draws N1.4m monthly salary, Rep N1.1m
• Senator draws N1.4m monthly salary, Rep N1.1m
By Abimbola Akosile
The N120 billion allocated to the National Assembly in the 2015 budget
is not spent by the 109 Senators and 360 members alone, contrary to
popular belief, THISDAY has learnt.
Instead, investigation has revealed that there are about 4,000
individuals, 145 committees, nine local and foreign bodies as well as
four agencies which share the budget allocated to the federal
legislature.
According to findings, part of the money is also expended on capital
expenditure, general services, organising public hearings, pursuing
various litigations, hiring consultants, performing oversight functions
which is the other key function of the legislative institution apart
from law-making, and foreign and local travels.
According to documents obtained from the Ministry of Finance and the
National Assembly, the current legislature has the smallest allocation
of N120 billion, which is 2.67 per cent of the 2015 national budget of
N4.5 trillion, and N30 billion less than what was allocated to the same
institution in the last five years.
The reduction in budgetary allocation was self initiated by the
lawmakers in response to the dwindling revenue of the federation,
findings also revealed.
Also, the documents revealed that 7,200 individuals draw salaries and
allowances from the National Assembly, which include 109 Senators, 360
members of the House of Representatives, 13 commissioners in the
National Assembly Service Commission (NASC), 3,208 members of staff of
the commission and 337 members of the management staff, 3,024
legislative aides, seven members of board of the National Institute of
Legislative Studies (NIALS) with 115 staff members of the institute.
Also, it was discovered that funds are allocated to servicing of the 54
Senate standing committees and 91 House of Representatives standing
committees, while the legislative institution also fulfils its financial
obligations to bodies like the inter-Parliamentary Union, Commonwealth
Parliamentary Association, Pan African Parliament, ECOWAS Parliament,
African, Carribean and Pacific - EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly,
Shoora/Arab Parliament and National Conference of State Legislatures.
From the fund, a senator gets a monthly salary of N1.4 million while
his colleague in the House gets N1.1 million a month. The breakdown of
the monthly salary include wardrobe allowance of N42,216 and N41,358 for
Senator and Representative respectively, and N337,733 and N330,868 for
housing allowance. Other components of the monthly salary include basic
salary (N168,866 for Senators and N165,435 for Reps); vehicle
maintenance (N126,650 and N124,075 respectively), entertainment,
utility, domestic staff, constituency, newspaper, recess and personal
assistant.
The salaries and allowances were however fixed by the Revenue
Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) which is
constitutionally charged with the responsibility of determining the
remuneration appropriate for all political, judicial and public office
holders.
The National Assembly, it was learnt, also spend money on general
services which include but are not limited to maintenance of its huge
complex, fueling of power generating plants, insurance of building,
vehicles and other capital assets.
Funds are allocated to purchase of utility vehicles, purchase of office
equipment as well as rehabilitation and repairs of the National
Assembly complex, findings also revealed.
A document obtained during the investigation also noted that “members
of the National Assembly are not allocated funds for constituency
projects... They are neither given funds to execute projects in their
constituencies nor do they prequalify Contractors for such projects. The
practice is that, some relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies of
the executive arm of government allow members of the National Assembly
to indicate where certain projects should be sited in their
constituencies. The procurement processes as well as funding for these
projects remain an executive function.”
A Senator, who spoke on the issue, said “apart from all these people
who are documented as legally sharing the National Assembly budget, how
about the thousands of others that we provide for?
The Senators and Representatives are the agencies for social security
in this country. Without any statutory social security programme, our
constituents besiege our home and offices for one financial assistance
or the other. So, people who bandy about exaggerated figures about our
allowances should know they are simply undermining democracy.”
Another Senator lamented that “people who are talking about jumbo
salary figures for the National Assembly are simply trying to turn the
people against us. Those figures are not correct. They are not enough to
even provide the comfort that some of us enjoy before coming to the
National Assembly”, he said.
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