After years, months and days of speculation on what members of Nigeria’s National Assembly take home in the name of allowances, the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) on Saturday published details of the legitimate salaries and allowances of National Assembly members and ministers. The publication came in form of a public notice signed by Usman I. Garndawa, the Acting Secretary of RMAFC. The commission stated that the details of the remuneration packages were provided in order “to avoid misinformation and misrepresentation of facts.” The RMAFC described the lumping of all salaries and allowances into yearly totals as erroneous in the sense that some of the entitlements are “non-regular” and are paid only once in four years. It was contained in the public notice by RMAFC, allowances that accrue to legislators include accommodation, under which each Senator gets N 4 million while each House of Reps member gets N3.97 million. As vehicle loan each Senator takes N8 million, while Reps collect N7.94 million. The furniture allowance for each Senator is N6 million, while Reps’ furniture allowance stands at N5.956 million for each member. Severance gratuity for each Senator N6.09 million, for Reps, it is N5.956 million. Like the vehicle loan, severance gratuities are paid only once in 4 years The commission however made it known that accommodation allowance is paid to each legislator every year. Other annual allowances include those for motor vehicle fuelling and maintenance, for which Senators are entitled to N1.52 million each and their House of Reps counterparts pocket N1.489 million. Constituency, Senators get N5 million, Reps N1.985 million, domestic staff allowance for Senators amounts to N1.519 million while each Rep takes N1.488million. Legislators are also given allowance for personal assistants, for each Senator, the figure is N506,600 while for Reps it is N496,303, for entertainment Senators take home N607,920 and Reps N595,563, recess allowance for Senators stands at N202,640 and N198,521 for Reps. Senators get N607,920 for utilities as against N397,042 for Reps. For newspaper/periodicals N303,960 accrues to each Senator and N297,781 to each Rep, house maintenance for Senators, N101,320 and for Reps,N99,260 while wardrobe allowance for Senators is N506,600 and Reps are given N496,303 for the same purpose. . The Acting Secretary hinted that “regular allowances are paid regularly with basic salaries while non-regular allowances are paid as at when due. For instance, furniture allowance and severance gratuity are paid once in every tenure and vehicle allowance which is optional is a loan which the beneficiary has to pay before the end of tenure. It is therefore wrong and misleading to add up allowances irrespective of whether they are regular, refundable or non-regular as the regular annual emoluments of political public office holders.” RMAFC dissociated itself from any other allowance as it stated that “the commission also wishes to use this opportunity to state that any other allowance(s) enjoyed by any political, public office holders outside those provided in the Remuneration Act of 2008 is not known to the commission and the chief accounting officer should be held accountable.”
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 11:30:40 +0000
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