Nigerian govt shelves upward review of politicians’ salaries

The Chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Mohammed Shehu, said on Sunday the salaries of the country’s political office holders would not be increased at this time.

Shehu, who disclosed this to journalists in Abuja, said the decision to push forward the review of the public officers’ salaries was due to current economic challenges in the country.

He said the last time the review took place was in 2007, adding that political office holders do not earn outrageous emoluments as speculated by Nigerians.

RMAFC said in June the federal government was considering a 114 percent pay rise for political and judicial officers in the country.

Clarifying the situation, Shehu said: “From 2008 till date there has not been any single review.

“Last year, some individuals took the federal government to court. These were some activists concerned about the salaries of judicial officers.

“In the court, the judge ruled that a judge should be paid about N10 million a month, that was the court ruling.

“We are Nigerians, we are not going to start talking about reviewing salaries of political office holders now because of the challenges that the government is facing.

“As a commission, we are going to do our work but we are not going to say we will do it now.

“We will do it when the climate is right and then we will take it forward to the stakeholders for them to decide on what to do.”

The chairman said what people considered as outrageous earnings of lawmakers were statutory office running costs which should be managed by the National Assembly Service Commission.

“I know some people will say members of the National Assembly get up to N10 million or N11 million monthly.

“Those are not salaries, they are like operating cost of running their offices which in other societies the legislator does not have to see because there is a structure.

“Once you get elected, you make that structure from your constituency office to computers to logistics to the size of your constituency.

“Wherever you have constituency office, the workers you hire, it is the National Assembly Service Commission that is supposed to take care of that,” the RMAFC chief added.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now