The Senate has said the statements credited to the Chairman, Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, Shehu Sani, on the salaries and monthly ‘running cost’ of senators did not disclose anything new.
Specifically, the upper legislative chamber pointed out that the figure given by the Kaduna Central senator about running cost of the offices of Senators were contained in various line items and expenditure heads of the budget of the National Assembly which has been made public.
It would be recalled that the outspoken senator had in a recent interview disclosed that each senator took home N13.5 million as ‘monthly running cost’ and another N700,000 as monthly salary.
But in a statement on Sunday, Senate Spokesperson, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, dismissed insinuations that lawmakers were unhappy with Sani, and said if people had looked critically at the budget of the National Assembly which has since been made public, they would have seen that various line items like traveling, medicals, consultancy and the rest were captured in the budget.
“Almost all holders of elective and appointive offices have running costs allocated to their offices and that cannot be said to be part of their salaries”, Abdullahi stated.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
