Senator’s salary
Senator’s salary:As controversy continues to follow what Nigerian lawmakers earn, a senator representing Kano South, Sumaila Kawu, has revealed that he
earns over N21m monthly as a total take-home package.
Kawu was speaking after a series of controversies in recent times
depicted Nigerian lawmakers of earning far above their counterparts in other parts of the world for doing nothing but accepting executive dominance.
In the 10th Senate like the 9th senate, Nigerians have had to contend with the legislature that accepts everything the executive throws at it.
Senator’s salary:The scrutiny
Appropriations, especially, are tacitly approved sometimes secretly
when the houses are not full and without proper scrutiny.
The same goes for screening and confirming appointments from
the president, who’s the head of the executive.
This has led to calls for the scrapping of the Senate to allow for a
one-house national assembly that would operate on a part-time basis.
Also, there has been agitation for a reduction in their earnings and a removal of executing constituency projects, which are left unexecuted after the lawmakers might have collected allocations for the projects.
Following the controversies, the chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation,
Allocation and Fiscal Commission or RMAFC, Mohammed Shehu,
claimed that each of the 109 senators in the red chamber receives a total of N1.06m in salary and allowances per month.
Shehu also spoke after former President Olusegun Obasanjo tackled
National Assembly members over their bogus allowances.
the house of representative
Speaking in Abeokuta, Ogun State Capital while receiving House of
Representatives members led by Ikenga UgoChinyere, Obasanjo said, “In your case, with all due respect, you’re not supposed to fix your salaries.
“But you decide what you pay yourself, the allowances that you give
yourselves (including) newspaper allowances.
“You give yourselves all sorts of things, and you know it is not right. It is immoral,
(yet) you are doing it, the Senate is doing it, and you are beating your chests about it.
“In some cases, the executive gives you what you’re not entitled to.
You all got N200 million (each).”
But Kawu, while responding in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service,
said the official pay of N1 million fixed by the RMAFC drops to around
N600,000 after deductions but there are other allowances that take their total pay to N21 million per month.
the salary
“The amount of salary received per month is less than N1 million.
If there are cuts, it comes back to about N600,000.
“In the senate, each senator is given N21 million every month as the cost of running his office.”