Senators’ outrageous running costs
Long-simmering public anger against the payment of outrageous remunerations to National Assembly members was ignited recently by Senator Shehu Sani [APC, Kaduna] when he gave details of payments received by individual senators. It was the first time that a serving senator will confirm speculations that besides their monthly salary, senators receive huge sums of money as running cost. It was also the first time that Senate officially confirmed the figures.
Senator Shehu Sani said every senator receives N13.5 million monthly as running cost. Speaking to The News, he said the running cost was in addition to N700,000 consolidated monthly salary and allowances paid to each senator. He also said while senators are not required to account for how they spend their monthly salary, they are required to provide receipts to back up expenses from the running cost. On constituency projects, Senator Sani said they are given on zonal basis and almost every senator will get N200 million for constituency projects. He said, “You will be told that you have N200 million with an agency of government for which you will submit projects equivalent to that amount. And it is that agency of government that will go and do those projects for you”. Sani advised that payment of running cost and constituency projects should be abolished, leaving the lawmakers to earn just their salary.
Reacting to Sani’s claim, Chairman of Senate Committee on Media and Publicity Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi said there was nothing new in what Senator Shehu Sani revealed. Defending their collection of jumbo running costs, Senator Sabi said “Almost all holders of elective and appointive offices have running cost allocated to their offices that cannot be said to be part of their salaries.”
Most Nigerians commend the courage of Senator Shehu Sani to disclose what had remained classified among federal lawmakers for many years. For instance, Human Rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Femi Falana lauded Senator Sani for “blowing the whistle on a matter of crucial national importance”. He also said the not-too-long statement credited to Professor Itse Sagay that our legislators are the highest paid in the world cannot therefore be faulted.
Given the high rate of unemployment and underemployment, Nigerians consider the payment of N13.5 million monthly running costs to senators as immoral, excessive and despotic especially in a country where the minimum wage is N18,000 per month. This show of greed by the lawmakers is a brazen demonstration of their collective and exceptional insensitivity to the predicaments and needs of other Nigerians. Worse still is the weak system of retiring monies received by the lawmakers. There is currently no strong audit mechanism to check senators from presenting fictitious receipts meant to cover the expenses ‘incurred’ from the N13.5 million running cost.
The Auditor General of the Federation (AuGF) has the singular responsibility of auditing every document used in retiring monies collected by members of the National Assembly. Besides salaries, the AuGF must ensure that every disbursement of funds received by the lawmakers is properly retired to the satisfaction of financial and auditing regulations. The AuGF’s annual report should capture un-retired or fraudulently retired funds as it affects individual senators and members of the House of Reps. Verified fraudsters should thereafter be made to refund such monies to public treasury. The AuGF is further reminded that his annual report, which has not been in public domain for some time, is a pubic document that should be accessible to Nigerians.
The N13.5 million running cost for senators is the kind of outrageous remuneration that is prompting many people to want to go to the National Assembly including those who have nothing to offer. We call for a downward review of the running cost currently paid to federal lawmakers to a sum commensurate to the country’s economic realities and not to the detriment of other categories of workers and public officers in Nigeria.