Who Vets The Financial Excesses Of The National Assembly? FENRAD Queries

.... Laments what many Nigerians consider to be conspicuous consumption in the face of hardships, being exhibited by federal lawmakers.

..... Calls for an open budgeting, part of fiscal responsibility, financial transparency and accountability in the National Assembly budget. All the spending of the National Assembly MUST be made public and accessible to all Nigerians, to the last Kobo

Recent news making waves has it that a senator earns ₦21 million monthly in allowances and salaries, including running costs. 

For a country whose budgetary deficits kept increasing with debt servicing gulping almost 100% of the revenue until recently, this is not just unsustainable but gross fiscal recklessness. Nigeria's fiscal environment does not gain anything with this present system of payment. 

Before now, a former Senator representing Kaduna Central, Sen. Sani Shehu, revealed that in his time, a federal lawmaker in the Senate earned a little over ₦13 million monthly, while former representative Sergius Ogun had revealed that he earned ₦8,000,000 monthly as a member of the Federal House of Representatives on national television. 

While there are discrepancies regarding what a federal lawmaker earns in Nigeria, adjusting to meet the current state of affairs is key, and in line with the push for cost of governance reduction. 

Recently, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, while speaking in Abeokuta, alleged that the federal lawmakers fix their salaries leading to response from the Senate's spokesperson. 

The Foundation is aware that the annual basic salaries of the two-chamber parliament are determined by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, as enshrined in the 1999 constitution, as amended. While the Commission has come out to state that a senator of the federal republic earns ₦1,068,000 (one million, sixty-eight thousand Naira only) monthly, available facts show that the running costs, if included in the consolidated salary structure will run in millions. This is unnecessary in a country with 133 million people facing multidimensional poverty, 20 million children out of school, people dying of treatable diseases like cholera (and monkey pox recently). 

Even though no lawmaker should by right not earn beggarly sum, there is no justification whatsoever for certain allowances and appurtenances that our lawmakers enjoy today. For example, allowances like hardship allowance and severance pay, which is 300% of the basic salary, paid to members are not returning to the parliament is meaningless. Also is recess allowance (holiday allowance or "tokens"). 

The irony is that the National Assembly is required to meet at least not less than 181 days yearly. The 2021 Senate met only 66 times (66 plenaries) and still earned all their payments. Why? This is a huge insult to the average Nigerian worker who works 5/7 or 6/7 weekly, putting in more hours and effort monthly while they hardly receive ₦30,000 minimum wage implemented since 2019. Again, it shows that against the call for part-time legislature, our lawmakers could be already working part-time while earning bloated full-time pay. We may ask, how many times do they convene in a year? 

It is also ironic that the National Assembly which carries out oversight on the budgetary implementation of government offices, departments and agencies does not subject its budget to public scrutiny. Since 2018/19, for example, there is no record anywhere on how the National Assembly is being run. For years now, the allocation of lawmakers comes under the rubric of statutory transfer, captured as first line charge where those of secret and intelligence agencies like the DSS, EFCC and even INEC are captured. So the Foundation asks: who vets the financial excesses of the National Assembly? 

While the salaries of lawmakers are known, the Foundation frowns upon the secrecy of their running costs. What amount does a senator or representative collect to maintain their office monthly, and how much does that cost Nigeria annually? In the budget of 2024, the National Assembly received ₦197bn, an amount of money bigger than the ₦102.5bn that was allocated to the National Agricultural Development Fund (NADF), in the same appropriation year. To put it as a Premium Times story captured it, the sum was "bigger than what 25 federal universities combined got" in the same reporting period. Later in January of 2024, the same National Assembly budget was raised by over 70% to a whopping sum of ₦344.85bn from a budget of a little over ₦33 trillion. What were the baselines for the sudden jerk up, FENRAD asks. 

The Foundation laments what many Nigerians consider to be conspicuous consumption in the face of hardships, being exhibited by federal lawmakers. The fact that the first money bill President Tinubu forwarded to the National Assembly in July of last year, 2023, had ₦70,000,000,000 (seventy billion naira) provision awarded to allow lawmakers to 'settle in" is what many Nigerians do not understand. The Senate has yet to explain what settling in means. This is why people like Obasanjo would continue to argue that the National Assembly receives some ex gratia payments from the president. 

Lastly, the Foundation calls for an open budgeting, part of fiscal responsibility, financial transparency and accountability in the National Assembly budget. All the spending of the National Assembly MUST be made public and accessible to all Nigerians, to the last Kobo. It is sad that constituency development fee has an item in the National Assembly appropriation to enable lawmakers attract projects to be executed; a process FENRAD, together with its partners, has monitored and found to be insufficient. Projects, whether their attraction or completion should lie with the federal and sub-national governments being the executive governments, as the work of the legislature is in three key areas of: lawmaking, representation, and oversight; not anything with projects. 

Also, a cap should be placed on the limits the National Assembly can spend. Inflation is biting, the food crisis shows no sign of abating, while food insecurity is not letting up. We can't continue like this, unless we want to slump into a Hobbesian state of nature.

E-Signed.

Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor 
Executive Director

Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy & Development (FENRAD Nigeria