Instead of the N1.06 million that the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) said was approved for each member of the Senate, a lawmaker representing Kano South, Senator Sumaila Kawu, has revealed that each legislator in the Upper Chamber earned over N21 million monthly as a total take-home package.
Kawu spoke in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service.
According to Kawu, the official pay of N1 million fixed by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) stood around N600,000 after deductions.
However, he said, allowances ballooned their total pay to N21 million per month.
BBC’s interview with Kawu came some 24 hours after the RMAFC, the body empowered by law to fix salaries and allowances of political office-holders, claimed that each of the 109 senators in the upper chamber receives a total of N1.06 million in salary and allowances per month.
But in his BBC Hausa interview, Kawu said, “The amount of salary received per month is less than N1 million. If there are cuts, it comes back to about N600,000. In the senate, each Senator is given N21 million every month as the cost of running his office.”
The lawmaker said the allowances include office running, newspaper money, local travel and others.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo had stirred up a controversy when he tackled National Assembly members over their allowances.
While receiving House of Representatives members led by Hon. Ikenga UgoChinyere, at home Abeokuta in Ogun State, Obasanjo told them: “With all due respect, you’re not supposed to fix your salaries. But you decide what you pay yourself, the allowances that you give yourselves (including) newspaper allowances.
“You give yourselves all sorts of things, and you know it is not right. It is immoral, (yet) you are doing it, the Senate is doing it, and you are beating your chests about it. In some cases, the Executive gives you what you’re not entitled to. You all got N200 million (each).”
However, the lawmakers told Obasanjo that RMAFC fixed their allowances.
Responding to the controversy the matter generated in the public space, RMAFC released a statement putting a Senator’s official pay at N1.06 million monthly.
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