Last week, the papers and internet were full of revealing comparative information that our legislators are the highest paid in the world and our ministers are also among the top in the league table of jumbo salaries for executives. In November last year, the Governor of the Central Bank, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, had revealed that Nigeria uses 70% of its budget on salaries and emoluments of public servants in the executive and the legislature. He made a passionate call for the reduction of these emoluments so that we as a nation can free resources for development. His call was drowned out by anger of our legislators who were furious at his statement that the legislature consumed a significant percentage of overhead costs. It is important that our country returns to the core argument that by paying excessively high salaries and emoluments to top public officials, in particular, permanent secretaries, ministers and legislators; we are mortgaging the rights of our people to development. That we are refusing to spend the bulk of available public resources to provide improved infrastructure, health and education to our citizens. On July 2011, the professional ruffler of feathers, Nasir El Rufai had warned the nation that the total revenue from oil that year could not pay “the salaries and allowances of politicians and public sector workers and their “overheads” – their tea, coffee, travel and estacode.” He pointed out that it costs on the average about 2.5 million to maintain each of our one million public servants The cost of maintaining one legislator is 320 million Naira, he argued. This is the reason why we have been borrowing to carry out capital projects he pointed out. The legislature in particular has been very sensitive, if not hostile to any discussion about their salaries and emoluments. They appear to think that they have been too often the targets of unfair attacks and have reacted with anger at those who raise the issue. I feel that there is sufficient basis to have a debate on jumbo salaries with the overall objective of redressing the excessively high cost of governance in the country. This discussion should be focused on both the legislature and the executive. As both, the executive and the legislature have responsibility for the high cost of governance, the tradition of one accusing the other of guilt in this regard should cease. The legislature however has special responsibility because they determine the final budget and there are increasing accusations that the process of appropriation is being increasingly compromised by self-interest of legislators. It might be the case that they have attenuating circumstances. Joel Barkan for example has argued that legislatures, or more accurately, legislators acting individually, rather than as members of a corporate organization that engages in collective decision-making, perform the additional function of constituency service. In most African countries, legislators have imposed upon them two forms of constituency service – (a) Regular visits by MPs to their districts to meet constituents and assist some with their individual needs. (b) Involvement in small to medium scale development projects that provide various forms of public goods – roads, water supply systems, schools and scholarship schemes, health clinics, meeting halls, etc. to their constituents. This constituency service function has always provided the subtext for raising emoluments of legislators but has never really been placed on the table for discussion. The consequence is that the Nigerian National Assembly has had a very bad press and an eroding reputation with the public. Press reports, allegations from the Executive branch and statements by major national players and analysts have presented the members of the National Assembly as self-serving individuals who pay themselves enormous illegal allowances. In addition, they have been accused of using their powers of oversight to blackmail ministers and heads of agencies for pecuniary gain. Finally, over the years, there have been accusations that certain laws have been passed on the basis of hefty inducements to legislators. I believe that there is the tension between legislating and constituency service because the first seeks to arrive at decisions that serve the entire nation while constituency service is, by definition, addressed to a smaller sub-community of society. In Nigeria, the legislature has responded to its constituency service function at three levels. First is the introduction of constituency projects in which legislators propose specific projects for their constituents, which are implemented, not by them, but by various ministries, departments and agencies under the Millennium Development Goals Programme. So while the executive branch carries out the projects, the legislators get the credit. The second is the increase of constituency allowances to allow legislators respond to regular appeals from constituents for financial help for weddings, burials, ill health and so on in addition to other demands for jobs, contracts and every conceivable demand. Thirdly, almost all legislators have developed a set of personal projects, which they develop for their constituents. The argument for constituency services can be stretched to all public officials and indeed all persons with a regular income. We are all participants in a demand system in which relations, friends, associates and everyone else come to people considered to be relatively more well off who then become targets of solicitation. It is because of these more well spread phenomenon that civil society and the media have responded very negatively to these developments and the articulation of their concerns has played a major role in creating the reputation erosion that Parliamentarians have been suffering from. There must be limits placed on those who finalise the budgets on what they pay themselves if we are to maintain sanity in public finance. The National Assembly should embark on a path of transparency and accountability in engaging Nigerians in a frank conversation about the imperatives of constituency servicing and its limits. They should be open about what they receive, they should also respond to numerous calls by Nigerians for a cap on the legislature’s recurrent budget. Even more important, they need to take a more proactive role, together with civil society partners in getting citizens and constituents to understand better their legislative functions so that expectations on them are reduced. Civil society and the media have a responsibility to take a lead in this debate and educate the public on the reasons they should be moderate on the type of personal demands they make on their legislators. In addition, civil society and the media should orient their civic education programmes and activities towards getting the citizenry to better understand the legislative process so that their set of expectations from their legislators begins to change. I believe that waste of public resources is higher in the executive branch compared to the legislature. If therefore the legislature takes the initiative to curb its own excesses, they will be strengthened in using their over-sight and budget making powers to curb the excesses of the executive. I believe that the strong arguments made by Nasir El Rufai in his lecture to the Guild of Editors are more than enough to urge the Presidency and the National Assembly to respond on the ethics, irrationality and high costs of spending the earnings of 167 million Nigerians on the one million in the public sector. We must bring in the people as beneficiaries of public revenue through the expansion of public services. As we become less capable of selling our petroleum and give up the fight against oil bunkering, the reality on the ground is that we can no longer sustain the current expenditure profile. As the world asks us how can we afford such jumbo pay for a few, we should have the courage to confess to ourselves that we cannot.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 09:16:57 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015