The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, has said that the salaries of federal lawmakers are too small compared to the enormous jobs their office requires them to do.
The deputy speaker said this while speaking on Channels TV on Monday night, February 26.
He was speaking against the suggestion that the lawmakers’ salaries should be slashed in tune with the need to cut the cost of governance in the face of the current harsh economic realities.
“At the moment, talking about the salary of the National Assembly. I have said this over and again, it is not as much as people think. Salary is different from allowance, which is meant to do the jobs our constituents have sent us to do. Nobody is allowed to touch allowances. It is the salary that belongs to you. Allowances have no subheadings for which they are made for. If you use it wrongly, when you are retiring it, you will be sanctioned for that.
So talking about the salaries of the National Assembly, it is a far cry from what is supposed to be. And I can assure you that even if we reduce it by 50 per cent or 80 per cent, it will not really impact what the Nigerian lawmakers should be earning, which does not go in tandem with the economic situation of the country.
I can assure you that based on economic indices at the moment, inflation rate and the rest of them, the amount members of the National Assembly receive cannot actually take them home to do their jobs in their various constituencies.
Considering the cost of transport, running constituency offices and the number of maintaining aides who are supposed to have you achieve what the mandate of that office demands, it is not a discussion that will add value to the crisis we are faced with.
But I can assure you they will be willing to adjust. If that is what will move Nigeria to the next level, why not? After all, we did not send ourselves there. We were voted in by the constituents,” he said.
Watch him here.
