Nigeria is sorta cash strapped, Goodluck Jonathan left her that way, President Buhari inherited her… but these Senators just don’t get it.
Workers’ salaries haven’t been paid for months, but the insensitive Senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria- cry over a pay-cut.
The Senators are antsy over the purported plan to further reduce the budget of the National Assembly from N120bn.
Traditionally, it used to be N150bn for the seven arms of the National Assembly, but this time around, it was cut by N30bn, due to the cash-crunch situation.
You know, all the billions of dollars allegedly embezzled from the nation’s coffers, has left her dry.
And now it appears there may be need for a further cut, but the Senators are livid with greed.
After all, they sit and talk for hours, why reduce their millions?
On Wednesday, August 12, they met for 2 hours on the matter, and resolved to reject the reduction of salaries and allowances as recommended by Senator James Manager’s committee.
“The Senate today, in closed-door session, discussed the report of the ad hoc committee on finances of the senate.“After due deliberations by the senators, we came to the conclusion that since the budget of the Senate is not independent of the budget of the National Assembly, the budget of the House of Representatives is also inclusive.
“We have the management; we have the National Institute for Legislative Studies; we have even the Public Conduct Commission; the National Assembly Civil Service Commission, and over 3, 000 legislative aides, that are beneficiaries of the N120bn annual budget.“Therefore, we have agreed that we should consult amongst other arms that share the budget of the National Assembly, before we would draw a conclusion on the report.“So, the resolution is that we are going to interface with the House of Representatives so that we can be on the same page on the report as presented. This is the resolution of the Senate today in a closed-door session.”“I am not aware of any cash crunch, and for me, it is news from you, and I don’t think it is true.”“It is the responsibility of the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission to stipulate how much you would be paid. But you can sacrifice, as a public officer, to say: I am taking half of my salary, and then taking half back to the treasury.“It means that it would be returned to the treasury, where it would be used for other developmental programmes.“We would make wider consultations with the House of Representatives on the report because we have one National Assembly and whatever is going to affect the Senate, the House of Representatives should also be carried along and I am sure that after this consultation we will get back to the public.”
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