Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy and Development (FENRAD), Nigeria has called for the review of the earnings of federal lawmakers.
It said this had become necessary for transparency and fiscal responsibility in the development of the budget of the National Assembly.
The call follows recent news making the rounds that a senator earns ₦21 million monthly in allowances and salaries, including running costs.
Before now, a former senator representing Kaduna Central, Sen. Sani Shehu, revealed that in his time, a federal lawmaker in the Senate earned a little over ₦13 million monthly, while former representative Sergius Ogun had revealed that he earned ₦8,000,000 monthly as a member of the federal House of Representatives on national television.
Also, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, while speaking in Abeokuta recently, had alleged that the federal lawmakers fix their own salaries, leading to a response from the Senate’s spokesperson.
The FENRAD believes that for a country whose budgetary deficits keep increasing, with debt servicing gulping almost 100% of the revenue until recently, this is not just unsustainable but gross fiscal recklessness.
Speaking on the development, the Executive Director of the FENRAD, Comrade Nelson Nwafor said Nigeria’s fiscal environment did not gain anything with this present system of payment.
According to him, while there were discrepancies regarding what a federal lawmaker earned in Nigeria, adjusting to meet the current state of affairs was key, and in line with the push for cost of governance reduction.
“The foundation is aware that the annual basic salaries of the two-chamber parliament are determined by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) as enshrined in the 1999 constitution, as amended.
“While the Commission has come out to state that a senator of the federal republic earns ₦1,068,000 monthly, available facts show that the running costs, if included in the consolidated salary structure will run in millions. This is unnecessary in a country with 133 million people facing multidimensional poverty, 20 million children out of school, and people dying of treatable diseases like cholera (and monkeypox recently).
“Even though no lawmaker should by right earn beggarly sum, there is no justification whatsoever for certain allowances and appurtenances that our lawmakers enjoy today.
“For example, allowances like hardship allowance and severance pay, which is 300% of the basic salary, paid to members not returning to the parliament is meaningless. Also is recess allowance,” he said.
Comrade Nwafor regrettably observed that despite the jumbo allowances, the National Assembly did not meet the expected responsibility, in terms of sitting and attending to the needs of the average Nigerians.
“The irony is that the National Assembly is required to meet at least not less than 181 days yearly. The 2021 Senate met only 66 times (66 plenaries) and still earned all their payments. Why?
“This is a huge insult to the average Nigerian worker who works 5/7 or 6/7 weekly, putting in more hours and effort monthly, while they hardly receive ₦30,000 minimum wage implemented since 2019.
“Again, it shows that against the call for a part-time legislature, our lawmakers could be already working part-time while earning bloated full-time pay. We may ask, how many times do they convene in a year?
“It is also ironic that the National Assembly which carries out oversight on the budgetary implementation of government offices, departments, and agencies does not subject its budget to public scrutiny.
“Since 2018/19, for example, there is no record anywhere on how the National Assembly is being run. For years now, the allocation of lawmakers has come under the rubric of statutory transfer, captured as first line charge where those of secret and intelligence agencies like the DSS, EFCC, and even INEC are captured.
“So the foundation asks, who vets the financial excesses of the National Assembly?
“While the salaries of lawmakers are known, FENRAD frowns at the secrecy of their running costs.
“What amount does a senator or representative collect to maintain their office monthly, and how much does that cost Nigeria annually? In the budget of 2024, the National Assembly received ₦197 billion, an amount of money bigger than the ₦102.5 billion that was allocated to the National Agricultural Development Fund (NADF), in the same appropriation year.
“Later in January of 2024, the same National Assembly budget was raised by over 70% to a whopping sum of ₦344.85 billion from a budget of a little over ₦33 trillion. What were the baselines for the sudden jerk up,” FENRAD asked.
The foundation called for open budgeting, part of fiscal responsibility, financial transparency and accountability in the National Assembly budget.
“All the spending of the National Assembly MUST be made public and accessible to all Nigerians, to the last Kobo.
“It is sad that constituency development fee has an item in the National Assembly appropriation to enable lawmakers to attract projects to be executed; a process FENRAD, together with its partners, has monitored and found to be insufficient.
“Projects, whether their attraction or completion, should lie with the federal and sub national governments being the executive governments, as the work of the legislature is in three key areas of lawmaking, representation, and oversight; not anything with projects.
“Also, a cap should be placed on the limits the National Assembly can spend. Inflation is biting, the food crisis shows no sign of abating, and food insecurity is not letting up.
“We can’t continue like this unless we want to slump into a Hobbesian state of nature, ”Nwafor submitted.
