The 2015 general elections have been won and lost. Un- fortunately, and to the bewil- derment of millions of Nigerians that voted for change, the so-called commonsense revolution appears to have started on a wrong footing.
The inability of the All Progres- sives Congress to bring together the power-seeking individual legislators in its fold is certainly not a good omen.
However, the Nigerian legislature, even in the era of the Peoples Democratic Party, is always in the spotlight for many reasons other than effective lawmaking.
One of such is the continued debate about the huge resources expended on maintaining the legislature.
Although this is not peculiar to the parliament, neither is it only a federal government problem, it is also an issue that calls for concern even among the states that receive 26.72 percent of total revenue and the local govern- ments that get 20.60 percent of the country’s proceeds.
Nevertheless, the obscurity sur- rounding the remuneration of the federal legislators and the public perception that they earn more than the official recommendations by the Revenue Mobilization, Al- location and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) is responsible for the almost unending question about the cost of maintaining the legis- lature in Nigeria.
This article attempts to contrib- ute to this debate by providing a guesstimate of the total remunera- tion package using data from the RMAFC. But it is first important to start with the budgetary alloca- tions to the legislature.
In 2001, the total amount al- located to the legislature from the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) budget was N15.49 billion or 1.5 percent of the total budget.
This increased consistently and peaked at N158.32 billion or 3.6 of the total budget in 2010. However, in 2011 the allocation dropped to N108.03 billion or 2.6 percent of the budget due to the lag effects of the global financial crisis of 2008/9.
But in 2012, the allocation increased to N150 billion or 3.2 percent of the total budget and that nominal amount has been maintained since then, despite the consistent decline in aggregate FGN budget from N4.92 trillion in 2013 to N4.72 trillion in 2014 and then to N4.36 trillion in 2015.
This implies that on average, the legislature gets more from the national budget at the expense of other critical sectors of the economy.
Using the 2015 Appropriation Bill as a reference point, the N150bn share to the legislature is equivalent to allocations to 12 different sectors.
These sectors include Ministry of Works N39.6 billion; Ministry of Agriculture N39.2 billion; Ministry of Water Resources N13.9 billion; Federal Capital Development Au- thority N12 billion; Ministry of Avia- tion N10.9 billion; Ministry of Mines and Steel N10.4 billion; Ministry of Power N8.8 billion; National Sports Commission N6.8 billion; Lands and Housing N6.2 billion; Police Service Commission N0.78 billion; Code of Conduct Tribunal N0.69 billion, and Wages and Service Commission N0.69 billion.
While the huge budgetary al- location to the legislature raises eyebrows given the socio-economic challenges facing the country, the lack of mechanism to identify the proportion of the allocation used for remuneration remains a subject of national discourse.
As stated in the introductory section, the RMAFC is statutorily respon- sible for setting the remuneration of public officeholders in Nigeria but the public perception is that the lawmakers are earning much more than the Commission’s rec- ommendation.
According to the RMAFC, the recommended total package of the Senate president is N8.94 million, deputy Senate president N8.31 million, while the ordinary senator gets N17.32 million.
The recom- mended package of the speaker is N6.44 million, deputy speaker N5.27 million, and the House member N14.99 million.
The 2008/9 global financial and economic crisis had a negative ef- fect on the country’s revenues and this led to a downward review of the remuneration of the legislators.
Based on the revision, the package for the Senate president dropped to N5.84 million, the deputy Senate president N5.43 million, and the senator N11.14 million.
Similarly,the package of the speaker of the House of Representatives was slashed to N4.58 million, the deputy speaker to N3.75 million, and the House member to N9.93 million.
It is observed that the Senate president and deputy Senate presi- dent earn less than the ordinary senator while the speaker and deputy speaker also earn less than the ordinary House member.
This is because the senators and House members that are not principal officers get housing, furniture and vehicle allowances which are not included in the package of the principal officers because they are provided with official accommoda- tion and vehicles.
With respect to the breakdown of the remuneration of the senator in addition to the basic salary and regular allowances, the RMAFC also recommends non-regular allowances.
The total of these non- regular allowances for a senator is N20.29 million before the down- ward revision to N14.21 million in 2009.
The sum of $600 is set aside for estacode allowance for a senator and was left unchanged during the 2009 revision.
MAXWELL EKOR
