…when states can’t pay salaries
Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has queried the N9 billion to be paid as miscellaneous and wardrobe allowances to members of the National Assembly, among whom are governors who plunged their states into debts and refused to pay salaries before getting elected into the Senate.
This is against the backdrop that workers’ salaries for several months are unpaid across 23 states in what is linked to shrinking allocations from the federation account.
Newly elected members of the eighth National Assembly Senate and House of Representatives will next week draw from the national treasury over N8.64 billion in what will see each senator, asides the president of the Senate and his deputy, smiling home with about N18.2 million, and each member of the House, asides the speaker and his deputy, taking away about N16.8 million.
The money is to take care of their vehicle, housing, and furniture allowances.
The TUC believes that the naira rain for the National Assembly members at a time workers across several states of the federation have not been paid for months put a question mark on the “change mantra,” more so as some of the beneficiaries are past governors who could not pay workers in their respective states.
Bobboi Bala Kaigama, president, TUC, who raised the alarm on Wednesday, said “politicians must not betray Nigerians again, because of the grave sacrifice the people made to ensure that the much-touted “change” is entrenched in all facets of our national life. It must be sounded that the desired change will become reality only if our leaders make as much sacrifice as the people have done.”
According to Kaigama, “if the change we expect must come, this admin- istration must review the provisions of the constitution that expressly stipulate such privileges for political officeholders. The cost of governance in our country is outrageously high and unsustainable, and we may resort to civil disobedience or other legal measures to compel a reduction of same if nothing is done about it in the nearest future.”
The congress condemned what it called the display of affluence by Nigerian politicians, saying “further more considering the nation’s present socio-economic realities, it is totally indefensible for senators and members of the House of Representatives to be paid as much as N2 million and N1.8 million, respectively, as basic salary every month. Where then lies any justification for their claims to being contributors to the growth of a nation where unemployment and other social vices are the order of the day?”
Believing that the humongous salaries and allowances of the National Assembly are drain on the national treasury, “how is this huge amount justifiable in the light of the current financial dilemma the nation is overwhelmed with?
“What do the legislators who often turn down pro- posals for wage increase for the workers do to deserve these mind-blowing sums of money? We think it is high time Nigerians take their destiny in their hands and stand firm against these in- justices and inequality,” the union noted.
JOSHUA BASSEY
