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The
Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation, and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC)
yesterday said no approval was given for the payment of enhanced
remuneration package for members of the National Assembly (NASS) to
warrant their accessing 25 percent of the country’s total Federal
annual expenditure profile.

Central
Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, stirred the
hornet’s nest at the weekend when he blamed the country’s economic woes
on “wasteful politicians”, particularly the National Assembly, whose
members, he said, earn a quarter of the nation’s annual budget in
salaries and allowances.

As
the Federal Government banker, the apex bank, which is constitutionally
responsible for disbursing funds to agencies of government, as approved
by the federal ministry of finance and released by the Office of the
Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), also keeps records of all
such disbursements for accounting purposes.

Huge disbursement

But
the Revenue Commission told reporters yesterday in Abuja that it was
wondering from where the quantum of disbursement to the NASS would have
come from, as alleged by the CBN governor, as the approved pay for the
lawmakers would hardly be sufficient to take care of such huge
disbursements.

Section
32(d) of Part One of the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution
empowers the Commission to “determine the remuneration appropriate for
political office holders, including the president, vice president,
governors, deputy governors, ministers, commissioners, special
advisers, legislators, and the holders of the office mentioned in
sections 84 and 124.

The
Commission yesterday provided its approved emolument, as enshrined in
the existing Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders
(Salaries and Allowances, Etc) [Amendment Act, 2008, pointing out that
the lawmakers had, in January 2009, turned down an Executive Bill that
sought to cut-down all political officers’ emolument in the wake of the
global economic and financial crises between 2007 and 2009. The Bill
was perfected by the immediate past chairman of the Commission, Hamman
Tukur, who earlier raised alarm last year on the growing figure of N1.3
trillion total annual emolument, out of which allowances gulped the
lion share, with basic salaries accounting for only N90 billion.

Former
President Umaru Musa Yar’adua and members of the Federal Executive
Council (FEC) had volunteered to take a 20 percent cut in their basic
salaries before the enactment of the pay cut law, before it was aborted.

No pay cut

Under
the proposed pay cut, the president’s total annual emolument would have
dropped from N14.058 million to N11.598 million; his deputy, from
N12.126 million to N10.004 million; ministers, Secretary to the
Government of the Federation (SGF)/ Head of Service/ chairmen of
federal establishments, from N7.801 million to N5.471 million.

The
package was in addition to other benefits, including official vehicles
and fueling, personal assistants entertainment, utilities, and domestic
staff.

Similarly,
the Senate president’s current annual emolument of N8.694 million would
have come down to N5.589 million; the deputy Senate president from
N8.082 million to N5.195 million, while those of the senators would
have moved from N12.766 million to N8.206 million; Senate committee
cxhair/ vice, from N12.867 million to N8.308 million respectively.

The
Speaker of the House of Representatives, would have had his annual
emolument also sliced from the current N4.954 million to N4.334
million; his deputy would have had his packaged trimmed from N4.574
million to N4.002 million, while members would have had their current
N9.529 million slashed to N6.352 million and House Committee/ Vice from
N9.628 million to N6.541 million respectively.

The emoluments of the principal officers of the Legislature exclude other pecks of office that are not spelt out in the law.