Indeed, electoral victory into any of the two ‘hallowed’
chambers of the National Assembly has been identified as the surest
means to instant wealth in the country today and it all starts with
breath-choking and mind-boggling salaries and allowances for wardrobe
and furniture.
Exactly how much each senator of the Federal Republic goes
home with every month is still a matter of conjecture, but it is
speculated to be well over N1 million, besides numerous allowances which
are about 50 times more than the basic salary, all in the same country
where minimum wage for a civil servant is just N18,000!
Times are hard now and both the country and its citizens
find themselves in desperate situations, leading to self-call to
introspection and sober reflection on whence they came as individuals
and as a country otherwise well endowed for greatness.
The free-fall in the crude oil price and the squandermania
of yesterday have left the country prostrate and, therefore, incapable
of sustaining the predatory and parasitic lifestyle of a few.
The call for the slashing of the lawmakers’ salaries has
been strident across the country and we join in this call, not only
because their jumbo pay is not in tune with present realities, but
chiefly because we believe that ours is not a jungle where the weak
suffer and die so that the strong can live and enjoy.
We see it as an unfortunate development in this country
that those who seek election into public office usually go with warped
mindset that they are making investment, which is why when elections are
contested and won, there is unholy desperation by such winners to
‘recoup’ their investment.
This, perhaps, explains the lawmakers’ initial resistance
to the move by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission
(RMAFC) to review their salaries, but Nigerians are insisting that
there should be no going back on this downward review.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) earlier this year kicked
against the lawmakers’ jumbo pay, calling for considerable cut.
Recently, civil society organization members protested and also demanded
that legislative business should be on a part-time basis in view of the
high cost of maintaining the National Assembly and frequent recess
embarked upon by the lawmakers. We agree completely with this.
It beats the imagination that these lawmakers don’t seem to appreciate
the mood of the nation which calls for leadership sacrifices, resource
allocation for national development and common good as opposed to
self-help, which is why we see the reduction of their annual budget from
N150 billion to N120 billion as insensitive and self-serving.
It is alarming that whereas Osun State with over 3 million
people is struggling with an unfunded 2015 Appropriation Bill of N201
billion, making it unable to pay workers’ salaries for seven months, less than 500 national legislators are swimming in N120 billion annual budget.
It becomes all the more painful knowing that, in terms of per capita income, Kano State with a population of 9,383,682
budgeted N210 billion in 2015, giving an estimated per capita income of
about N22,379, while the National Assembly’s per capita income, on the
basis of its N120 million budget, is estimated at N293,398,533.
This, to us, is gross injustice and only
portrays the illegal and unconstitutional concentration of scarce
national resources in the hands of legislators and executive office
holders who live ostentatiously at the expense of the rest of the
citizens.
We, therefore, unequivocally support the
idea of new salaries for the ‘distinguished’ senators and ‘honourable’
members of the House, and the new salaries must come down by as much as
50 percent to truly reflect the present mood of the nation’s economy.
This should be taken as a short-term
measure. In the long term, we are of the opinion that legislative
function should be made part-time, more so when the legislators are
frequently on recess, meaning that the work they do can be effectively
done in not more than six months in a year and from the comfort of their
homes.
0 comments:
Post a Comment