₦airaland Forum

I will suggest we take away the allowances and leave the basic salary...

I also believe we need just unicameral legislature cos the work of the house of reps and the Senate are quite same so need having them both. They are draining the country dry.

"Am Idris and I just wanna make common sense"...




That being said, my thread made FP ! Waooo!

**crying tears of joy, brings out handkerchief and blows plenty thick catarrh into it**

NIGERIANS that have expressed surprise that each senator receives N506,600 per annum as wardrobe allowance may be in for a shocker as the lawmakers receive far more allowances under different other categories.

Investigation by our correspondent on Monday showed that senators’ allowances totalled N18,642,880 on annual basis.

In all, the allowance each senator receives is nine times more than his annual salary.

A senator’s salary is pegged at N2,026,400 per annum.

Each senator or a member of the House of Representatives is entitled to 19 different allowances.

These allowances are for vehicle maintenance and fuelling; domestic staff, entertainment, utilities, personal assistant, constituency, wardrobe, house maintenance, newspapers, recess, accommodation, furniture, severance, tour duty, estacode, special assistant, security, legislative aide and medical.

These allowances are specified in the Remuneration Package for Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders prepared by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission.

On an annual basis, the 107 senators receive   N1,994,788,160 as allowances. Only 107 senators are eligible for these allowances. The President of the Senate and Deputy President of the Senate receive fewer allowances because most of their needs are fully provided for by the state.

For members of the House, the annual allowances payable are about eight times higher than their annual salaries.

While the annual salary of a House member is pegged at N1,985,212.50, the annual allowances add up to N15,286,135.25. This means that the 358 members of the House (excluding the speaker and the deputy speaker) get N5,472,436,419.5 annually in allowances.

The allowances, however, are in categories. Some are tagged regular while others are tagged irregular allowances.

Regular allowances are those that are paid on monthly basis along with the monthly salaries while irregular allowances are paid at other intervals, ranging from annual to once in four years.

There are also other allowances not included in this calculation that are paid not at any fixed periods but as many times as they occur in the year.

The allowances are calculated as percentages of the annual salaries. While some are higher than the annual salaries, others are lower.

Basically, both senators and Reps are paid the same percentages of their salaries as allowances, except the constituency allowance where senators are paid 250 per cent while Reps get 100 per cent of their annual salaries.

Vehicle maintenance and fuelling allowance is 75 per cent; domestic staff, 75 per cent; entertainment, 30 per cent; utilities, 30 per cent; wardrobe, 25 per cent; newspapers, 15 per cent; house maintenance, five per cent; and personal assistants, 25 per cent.

For a senator, therefore, the vehicle maintenance and fuelling allowance adds up to N1,519,800; domestic staff, N1, 519,800; entertainment, N607,920; utilities, N607,920; wardrobe, N506,600; newspapers, N303,960; house maintenance, N101,320; constituency, N5,066,000; personal assistant, N506,600.

For a member of the House of Representatives, the vehicle maintenance and fuelling allowance comes up to N1,488,909.40; domestic staff, N1,488,909.40; entertainment, N595,563.75; utilities, 595,563.75; wardrobe, N496,303.12; newspapers, N303,960; house maintenance, N99,260.62; constituency, N1,985,212.50; and personal assistant, N 496,303.12.

The irregular allowances include housing allowance, 200 per cent of the Reps annual salaries; furniture allowance, 300 per cent; recess allowance, 10 per cent and severance allowance, 300 per cent.

Housing allowance is paid once a year.

Furniture allowance is paid once in four years and recess allowance is paid when the lawmakers are on recess and they go on recess four times in a year. Severance allowance is at the end of the four-year tenure.

The housing allowance of a senator is N4,053,800. The furniture allowance is N6,079,200. On annualised basis, the furniture allowance is N1,519,800. The recess allowance climbs to N810,560 if they go on recess four times a year. The severance allowance is N6,079,200. On annual basis, it comes down to N1,519,800.

For Reps, the housing allowance is N3,970,425. The furniture allowance is N5,955,637.50. Annually, the furniture allowance comes down to N1, 488,909.38.

Also, recess allowance comes up to N794, 084. The severance allowance is N5,955,637.50. On annual basis, it comes down to N1,488,909.38.

There are other allowances that the lawmakers are not paid directly but provided and paid for by the government.

These are allowances for special assistants, security and legislative aides. What this means is that those engaged in these capacities are paid directly by the government as the allowances cannot be claimed by political office holders. These allowances apply to senators and Reps.

Medical expenses are also borne by the government when the lawmakers have need for the services.

The lawmakers are also entitled to tour duty allowance and estacode whenever they travel out of the country. For a senator, the tour duty allowance is N37,000 per night while the estacode is $950 per night.

For a member of the House of Representatives, the tour duty allowance is N35,000 per night while the estacode is $900 per night.

Although political office holders in the country are among the highest paid government officials in the world, our correspondent reports that the worry of many Nigerians is not what they earn officially but what accrues to them through self-appropriation and corruption.

The budget of the National Assembly is never broken into components and efforts to get them to break down the budget have not yielded the required result even after the invocation of the Freedom of Information Act.

Lawmakers are known to collect huge quarterly allocations, some of which are ostensibly designated for constituency projects. The constituency allowance is different from the constituency project fund.
Constituency allowance is paid for the maintenance of constituency office and contact while constituency project fund are appropriated to enable the lawmakers to execute projects in their constituencies.

http://www.punchng.com/news/senators-allowances-nine-times-higher-than-basic-pay/.

Kaduna Refinery
The cut in the prices of the country’s crude oil grades, Bonny Light and Qua Iboe, by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation may prompt other oil exporters to cut their crude prices in a bid to attract buyers, industry experts have said.
The experts said Nigeria must be strategic in its approach to pricing of its crude relative to competing crudes.
Nigerian crude that normally sells a month ahead of delivery is said to be currently stored on ships and storage terminals without buyers. Around the world, Nigeria’s barrels have had trouble competing with cheaper products from the Middle East.
Other crude grades from South and Central America are equally entering the Asian market and displacing Nigerian crude cargo because it is cheaper and the Asian refineries are able to process any type of crude.
India, which recently replaced the United States as the single largest importer of crude oil from Nigeria, has reduced its import of Nigerian crude as its demand for Latin American crude is growing sharply.
In a bid to attract buyers, the NNPC lowered the official selling price for its largest crude oil stream, Qua Iboe, to dated Brent plus 35 cents per barrel, the lowest differential since May 2005, according to Reuters.
Bonny Light fell to dated Brent plus 23 cents. That the smallest differential since 2005 and compares with a 50 cent premium in June and $2.55 a year earlier, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
The Group General Manager, Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Mr. Ohi Alegbe, told our correspondent on Monday that it was an alignment of 30 cents across board.
Alegbe said in an interview with our correspondent, “It is not a slash in price; it is an alignment of 30 cents across board. There is market volatility and you want to sell what you have.”
The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, International Energy Services Limited, Dr. Diran Fawibe, said, “Nigeria has to sell its crude oil to willing buyers with secondary consideration to traditional differentials.”
Fawibe, who was the general marketing manager responsible for marketing Nigerian crude oil in the world market at the NNPC, added, “Given the discounts being granted by Gulf producers, Nigeria must be strategic in its approach to pricing of its crude relative to competing crudes.”
For the Head of Energy Research, Ecobank Capital, Mr. Dolapo Oni, the move by the NNPC is long overdue, but is likely to have been pre-empted by the considerable amount of overhang in Nigerian oil cargo currently.
He said Nigeria’s oil was being priced out of its key markets by cheaper Latin American crude oils even as the United States’ imports had dropped below 50,000 barrels per day.
Oni added, “It is also indicative of the fact that perhaps the NNPC is looking to compete for market share alongside other OPEC countries that are ramping up oil output.
“Although the lower oil price is likely to attract buyers such as India and Indonesia, it could also provoke similar price cuts by other oil producing countries in the West Africa region, which could spark further decline in oil prices.”
The global benchmark, Brent crude, which recently rose towards $67 per barrel, traded around $62 per barrel on Monday. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries at its meeting early this month failed to cut production quota to prop up prices.
Oni said because other exporters were likely to make similar cuts, the move by the NNPC might not give the country a competitive edge.
According to him, because Nigeria sells a premium crude grade, the discount automatically imposes similar obligations on other heavy or sour crude grades, which typically sell lower than Nigerian crude grades.
“I think the key move that can give us a competitive edge will be to firm up our relationship with our key buyers in India, Netherlands, Spain, France and Indonesia. We also need to target the blending opportunities offered by Brazil, Canada, Venezuela and other heavy oil producers,” he said.
On the downside risk posed by the move, Oni noted, “The key impact is on our revenue. The size of this discount could prompt buyers to ask for more cuts as it reinforces the notion that we are in a buyers’ market. Thus, we could see our oil revenue decline on lower oil prices.”
Nigeria, Africa’s top oil exporter, is grappling to retain its market share, especially in Asia, where it saw an increase in the import of its crude oil last year, after it lost business in its main market, the US.
The country’s crude oil cargo has been selling at a discount in the past few months amid growing competition from other sellers, including Saudi Arabia.
The President of the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA, Eulogio Del Pino, had recently said that Nigeria, Algeria, Angola and Iran were interested in blending their light oil with his country’s heavy oil to get a better price for their crude.
He had in April announced talks on a novel plan to blend the country’s heavy crude with light oil from other OPEC allies seeking to create a new variety that could compete against swelling the US and Canadian supplies.
The proposal, which will expand on a pilot scheme embarked upon last year that involved Algerian oil, envisions supplying refineries built for medium-grade crude rather than the light oil that has become plentiful as a result of the North American shale boom.

Chairman, Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Mr. Elias Mbam
The committee set up by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission for the downward review of the salaries and allowances of political, public and judicial office-holders has started sitting.
The Head, Public Relations, RMAFC, Mr. Ibrahim Mohammed, confirmed this in a telephone interview with our correspondent in Abuja on Monday.
Mohammed also disclosed that the committee would soon call on members of the public to present memoranda to enable it to gauge the thinking of the people on the salaries and allowances of public office-holders.
The Chairman, RMAFC, Mr. Elias Mbam, had recently inaugurated the committee and charged it with the responsibility of reviewing the Remuneration Act, 2008.
The Act prescribed the salaries and allowances for political, public and judicial office-holders.
Mbam had urged members of the committee to be conscious of the prevailing economic situation in the country and the need to reduce the cost of governance so as to free more funds for development.
He also explained that the commission was constitutionally empowered to undertake the review of the remuneration packages as might be required from time to time so as to reflect current economic realities; advise the federal and state governments on monetisation policies; and generate cost of living indices for revision of allowances, among others.
The RMAFC boss directed the committee to undertake wide consultations with all critical stakeholders, including all arms of government of the federation, the national and state assemblies, state and local governments, professional and economic bodies, the organised labour, academia, media and the Nigerian public in general so as to enrich the process.
He reminded the committee members of the need to ensure that the review effectively minimised wastages and abuses, and ensured prudent management of resources as well.
The committee is expected to holistically review the existing Remuneration Act; identify areas of wastages and abuse; examine the implementation of the monetisation policy by Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government; and advise on appropriate remuneration for political, public and judicial officers commensurate with the work they do.
The committee is headed by the Chairman of the Remuneration Committee of the commission, Mr. Abdullahi Inde.

These guys should stop embarrassing Themselves na. They should learn to shut up.

Cr7 na mumu. Using shade in water!

Great speech. I hope they imbibe it.

What is however so saddening is the number of so called future leaders (youths) that will not read through these great speech before commenting.

Also annoying are those that will read it just because they don't wanna fall in the category above and not for zeal to learn























I no read finish also

Please which faction of NLC will do that?

This guy spends more time tweeting than working. Just a thought.....

This guy shaaaaa!

FTC! Can't believe this

** crying tears of joy**

That is no news na. What would have been news if is the contrary happened...

Am sure that guy no send say dem lose...lolz

Let them get to work already!

Looks fruity weird but cool.

To me no need to make too much issue out of this. At least the government can't force food and drink down the throat of the fasting Muslims there. May Allah accept our deeds as an act of ibadah..

The amnesty deal failed in the first place. The money given to those criminals would have been used to develop the area and create jobs for the teeming youths there... we got it wrong with the amnesty deal.

eedrees:
U neva see pics u dey shout nice

Guy I swear the girl matter tire me sef o. Lol!

Op don't take this wrongly o, but is she an orphan? ..

This is extremely funny.... . Anyway na van damme go first baptised

Prof. Attahiru Jega


Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission Professor Attahiru Jega has said the electoral body will continue to make use of the smart card reader when conducting elections in the country.
Jega said this on Saturday yesterday at the Wheatbaker Hotel, in Ikoyi, Lagos State where he was hosted to an evening with 100 young leaders by EbonyLife TV.
According to Jega, there is no doubt that the introduction of the smart card reader technology into Nigeria’s electoral process contributed greatly to the success of the 2015 general elections.
Jega, who fielded questions from a select pool of leading young professionals from various occupational sectors and socio-economic backgrounds, was also honoured as a “Champion of our Collective Aspiration for Free, Fair and Violent-free Elections” at the event.
Explaining the motive behind the event, Executive Chairman and CEO of EbonyLife TV, Mo Abudu, said “It is important for young Nigerians to ask questions; the Nigerian youth were a big part of the last general elections. We wanted Nigeria’s future leaders to grasp not only the importance of the elections and its ramifications for the country, but to begin to build upon it by truly understanding the legacy left by Professor Jega.”
The INEC chief while explaining his conviction about the card reader described it as a potent tool in the war against electoral malpractices, adding that the card readers had come to stay as the commission had no reason whatsoever to discontinue its use for elections in the country.
He also admitted that there is need for the INEC to examine areas of improving the effectiveness of the technology as it strives to retain its use.
Jega also urged young professionals in Nigeria to give the nation their best whenever and wherever they have the opportunity of contributing to the growth and development of the country, regardless of the current uncertainties pervading the country.
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The Peoples Democratic Party has said it had recovered from the unprecedented electoral defeat it suffered during the 2015 general elections.
The party said it had begun moves to recapture power from the All Progressives Congress in 2019.
The PDP said one of the moves, aiming at wining the elections in the future, was the election of the Governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko as the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum.
The PDP, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Olisa Metuh, in Abuja on Saturday said Mimiko, as a seasoned administrator and a highly organised person, was equipped for his new role as the chairman of the forum.
Metuh hailed the process that led to Mimiko’s emergence, saying the development reflects the unity and sense of purpose within its fold, especially at this rebuilding time.
He also commended the governors for their continued commitment towards the party “as it reengineers and repositions to regain power in 2019.”
Metuh added that the recent political events in the country had continued to vindicate the PDP as “the only true national platform committed to the national interest, where all citizens as equal partners are free to hold opinion and aspire to any position, no matter how high, without regard to creed, class or ethnic considerations and in which no individual or group of individuals can claim ownership or attempt to appropriate control.”
Stating that the PDP “has since overcome the setback of the last general elections,” the spokesperson for the opposition party said as a party founded on the principles of freedom, equality, justice and national unity, the PDP’s spirit “is still alive and stronger, now more than ever before, in the minds of most Nigerians and families in all the nooks and crannies of the country.”
He, therefore, charged its members in all the wards, local government and states of the federation to close ranks, double their efforts and continue to work with their leaders at all levels to ensure that the PDP comes out stronger to regain power at the center and in its traditional states come 2019.
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All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.

Contact: editor@punchng.com

Efforts by the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, to nip in the bud the crisis set off by the recent election of the principal officers of the National Assembly may have hit a brick wall.
The crisis of confidence which has pitted party leaders of the All Progressives Congress against the new principal officers of the National Assembly may take a turn for the worse this week.
Contrary to the belief in several quarters, President Muhammadu Buhari, who is widely believed to have accepted the election of the principal officers as a fait accompli, is said to be unhappy with the leadership of the National Assembly.
Sources close to the two camps told our correspondents that President Buhari and senior party officials were still peeved that Saraki and other party members defied the party and formed an alliance with the former ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party.
The APC senators loyal to Saraki had on June 9 boycotted a peace meeting convened by Buhari and the leadership of the party. The meeting, which was attended by senators loyal to Senator Ahmad Lawan, the APC’s official candidate for the position of the Senate President, was going on when Saraki, with the support of his loyalists in the APC and all the PDP senators, emerged as the senate president unopposed.
Since then, the party has been in crisis, even though the APC had said it would work with Saraki.
During the week, Saraki, paid a well publicised visit to former President Olusegun Obasanjo. His aim, reports say, was to seek the former president’s intervention in the crisis. Saraki wanted Obasanjo to pacify the APC leaders on his behalf. But Sunday PUNCH gathered that the former president’s intervention has failed to yield the results desired by Saraki and his camp.
It was gathered that shortly after Saraki’s visit to the former president, Obasanjo made a telephone call to Buhari advising him to make up with Saraki. The former president had reportedly told the president to work with Saraki and let the party deal with all the disciplinary issues that the former governor of Kwara State had been accused of. However, the President was said to have been non-committal.
Sources privy to these happenings told our correspondents that the telephone call initiated by Obasanjo was not the first time the former president would intervene in the matter. Sunday PUNCH reliably gathered that Obasanjo had met with Buhari in South Africa, last Sunday, and sought his help in resolving the crisis in the ruling party. Sources said that the former president, who was in Zambia for the 22nd annual general meeting of the African Export-Import Bank, had travelled from there to South Africa to meet with President Buhari.
Speaking over the weekend, some senior party leaders expressed doubts about the viability of Obasanjo’s intervention. They told SUNDAY PUNCH in different interviews that Saraki is an ally of former vice-president Atiku Abubakar whom Obasanjo is not very fond of.
One of them said, “It is not a secret that Atiku is solidly behind Saraki. How the senate president thinks Obasanjo will back any move by Atiku is what we don’t understand. Atiku was the first person that Saraki visited when he emerged as senate president. The ex-president will definitely not turn Saraki back but deep in his heart, he knows which camp he belongs to.”
But a source in the corridors of power told our correspondent on the condition of anonymity that the President’s response to pleas for his intervention had remained the same.
Sources said while Buhari was careful not to make his disappointment with Saraki public, he was very angry that the senate president led a rebellion against his party and also teamed up with the PDP to undermine it. One other reason the crisis has remained intractable, the source added, was the emergence of Senator Ike Ekweremadu as the Deputy Senate President.
“The President believes that Saraki earned the support of the PDP because of the deputy senate presidency he conceded to the opposition party. It is a treacherous thing to do to one’s party,” the source said.
Buhari had reportedly shunned all moves by Saraki to meet him before the senate president’s visit to Obasanjo.
However, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said Buhari was not avoiding Saraki. Rather, he said, it was the Senate President who is yet to visit the presidency. When asked specifically when Saraki would be meeting with the President, Shehu said it was left for the President of the Senate to decide.
“There is no truth in the claims that the President does not want to meet with any of the National Assembly leaders. He has said that he respects institutions and that strong men build institutions,” Garba said.
Our correspondents report that Saraki may be reluctant to make an approach because he doesn’t want to be rebuffed. A prominent member of the Like Minds Senators, a group sympathetic to the senate president, confirmed that Saraki had not fixed an appointment with Buhari after meeting Obasanjo.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said, “After the meeting with Obasanjo, there has been no specific move on the part of the senate president to meet with Mr. President. They will meet at the appropriate time.”
A senior APC official, who confided in SUNDAY PUNCH, said, “From all indications, all sides in the crisis are maintaining their hard-line positions on the crisis. It seems Saraki is not ready for reconciliation. His group is insisting on its position. The Lawan group has given its conditions for peace and the President believes that there must be party discipline.”
Meanwhile, in a clear sign that the president may not have a problem with the leadership of the House, Buhari will be granting audience to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, this week.
The meeting, one of our correspondents learnt, is at the instance of Dogara.
Shehu, confirmed Buhari’s meeting with Dogara. He however declined to give details of the specific day on which the meeting would hold.
“I have just gone through the President’s activities for the week and I saw that Dogara is scheduled to meet with him (the President) during the week,” Shehu said.
On his part, the spokesperson for the pro- Saraki group, Senator Dino Melaye, said the senate president had appeared before the party’s reconciliation committee.
He said, “The party set up a reconciliation committee with the APC General Secretary as Chairman and Saraki had appeared before the committee.”
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Contact: editor@punchng.com

Former Niger Delta militant leader, Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, has called on the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to pay contractors of the oil pipeline surveillance project in the country.
Asari-Dokubo, who is one of the former Niger Delta agitators awarded pipeline surveillance contract by the Federal Government, told SUNDAY PUNCH that the three-month deal elapsed on June 15.
He said that the ex-minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison-Madueke, did not sign for the payment of the pipeline surveillance contract before she left office.
The pipeline protection project, which cut across Lagos, Ogun, Bayelsa, Ondo, Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta States, was executed from March 15, 2015 to June 15.
Asari-Dokubo urged President Buhari to pay the contractors their money if he was truly committed to the rule of law.
“Diezani (Allison-Madueke) did not sign payment for the contract before she left. All across the six states (Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa) where the contract was awarded none of us were paid; none of the companies were paid. The Federal Government should do what is needful by paying the money they owe. The same mandate that was given to Buhari to become President was the same mandate that was given to us in a legal and binding contract.
“If Buhari is law-abiding and if his government respects the rule of law, the contractual obligations will be followed. The contract was awarded to corporate entities by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. We did not go in as individuals and the corporate entities are regarded as individuals under the law. No contract was awarded to any specific individual,” he said.
The former militant added that he and other contractors would follow due process to get their money from the Federal Government.
He appealed to the President not to set a bad precedent where government will fail to pay contractors who had executed their contracts.
“The same way they give contract to people to lift oil; the same way they give Julius Berger contracts to build roads; the same way they give people contracts to build houses; that is the same way pipeline surveillance contracts were given to us. But they (FG) are not paying for the work done. It is against the law of the land. Paying us our contract money is the right thing he (Buhari) ought to do and for any reasonable human being,” Asari-Dokubo said.
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The guy is kinda sounding humble......

GEJ lost was due to his relegation of OBJ coupled with his dismal performance....

When we told them APC will restore sanity to our land, they though we were joking... we sure made the right choices voting out PDP..

As far he is working, I don't wanna know where he works from....

That is the beauty of raising them... they are simply a welcome pain in the a.s.s.

That's is what will eventually happen if south south join them in their biafra debacle...

Op what's your point hia now huunn? U guys just like bringing up annoying post every time. Like it or not, PMB will be ur Leader for the next 3 plus years....

kodded:
Yeye man


Those ministries are far better than the ministry of employment he created






...Smh

This is what you get when you have a fufu head governor

This got me lmao...

G12:
he is oh, u no dey see am for him forehead?

he is oh, u no dey see am for him forehead?

**holds his ass and run**