LEGISREPORTS-NG: The insatiable greed of Nigeria’s federal lawmakers has been raised a notch higher as they have yet again increased their wages and pecks accruable to a mind-blowing 56 million naira and 42 million naira for each Senator and member of the House of Representatives respectively per quarter.

This latest development confirms LegisReports’ earlier exclusive story which reported that members of the House had mounted pressures on their leadership for a roof-top wage increase, rejecting a substantial increment offer from 27million naira to 32 million naira.

Futile Efforts at Subterfuge

LegisReports gathered from impeccable sources that this new increment in both the Senate and the House is being implemented in a manner of subterfuge that will conceal it from the Nigerian public because the payment has been arranged to be paid in instalments to members and under shady sub-heads such that prying eyes within the national assembly system will not easily decode.

But the cover on this certainly unpopular wage increment has now been blown open by our reliable sources who confirmed that part of the ploy is for the lawmakers to continue to openly complain about lack and/or inadequate resources while their bank accounts are being discreetly credited in instalments.

Fattened Lawmakers, Lean Populace

Until this new increment, each senator went home with 40 million naira every quarter while a member of the House received 27 million naira for the same period, an indecent wage in a country where the minimum wage of the average worker is 18 thousand naira per month and where over 70% of the populace live in abject poverty.

In the last dispensation under Speaker Dimeji Bankole (2007-2011), each member of the House of Representatives went home with a princely 40 million naira per quarter (every three months) but the overwhelming uproar which trailed the revelation in the media forced the succeeding House leadership under current Speaker Aminu Tambuwal to review the wage downward to 27 million in 2011.

Breaking the Law- the RMAFC By-pass

To further expose the duplicity and greed of the national assembly members, these mind-boggling wages were neither brought up for the consideration of nor approved by the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), the body statutorily empowered by law to fix salaries and wages for public servants in the country.

Despite the widespread public odium this practice of paying themselves huge allocations from the public purse has brought on the federal lawmakers, this latest increment indicates that the leopard cannot change its skin as far as the senators and house members are concerned on this issue. And in this case like in the past, no effort has been made to put the RMAFC into the picture even if for record purposes.

Highest Paid Public Servants Worldwide

Nigeria’s lawmakers have been established in several comparative analysis in the media to be the highest paid in the world, earning more than even president Barack Obama, the world’s most powerful elected public official. In spite of this huge and worrisome wages, the lawmakers have continued to fail to justify these earnings in the manner they discharge their duties and conduct themselves in public.

By this new development, members of the current House of Representatives have surpassed what their colleagues in Bankole’s house earned per quarter, thereby exposing the bellicose underbelly they had sustained against their leadership which had trumpeted an ambitious legislative agenda in the aftermath of its emergence.

A Confirmation

LegisReports had in that exclusive story reported how the pressures mounted on the Tambuwal leadership of the House had sometimes been taken to a level of blackmail with restive members threatening to scoop up mud against their leaders and some others tacitly supporting past failed impeachment plots against the Speaker, Mr. Tambuwal.

In that report, we also informed of how many of the members who are almost always broke stepped up the pressure on the House leadership when they returned empty-handed from the Christmas and end of year break in January as many of them had lavished their resources during the holidays.

Evasive Spokesmen

When our reporter got through to Hon. Zakari Mohammed, Chairman, House Committee on Media to get official response from him, he denied knowledge of the pay rise. However, he was unwilling to state how much the lawmakers earn as quarterly allowance. When our reporter probed him to disclose how much himself as a member of the House collects quarterly he referred LegisReports to the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, (RMAFC) a body charged with fixing salaries of public appointees for that information. His counterpart in the Senate, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe failed to respond to repeated calls to his phone.

LEGISREPORTS-NG promises to bring our readers more on this as the story develops.

SOURCE:http://www.legisreports-ng.com/again-nass-members-up-their-pay-senator-gets-n56m-reps-n42m-each/

Naija my country where d poor cry and d rich smile. First to comment abi?

No wonder they tried to increase the crude oil benchmark.

And we have the so called agent of change APC members on that house non opposed this move

karl max: And we have the so called agent of change APC members on that house non opposed this move

All Nigerian politicians have the same interest, regardless of their party affiliation.

Now Nigerians will know why GEJ has refused to sign the budget. Wonder why people could be so heartless.
6th

I will believe the opposition (APGA, CPC, ANPP, ACN, ACCORD, PPA etc) if their legislators reject this faceless increment and lead a protest to squash it's implementation.

The rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer

Where were the APC legislators? didnt they oppose this? Stupid Nigerians always being taken for a ride! APC ko, OPC ni!

Politicians looking for what will benefit them and people making noise on NL.

Ngwakwe: I will believe the opposition (APGA, CPC, ANPP, ACN, ACCORD, PPA etc) if their legislators reject this faceless increment and lead a protest to squash it's implementation.

The problem is not the party but the people. There is little or no difference between PDP members and APC members. APC members in national assembly should lay a good foundation by stopping the implementation, but i doubt them.