Nigerian lawmakers among least paid -Report

The much talked about salaries and emoluments of Senators and members of the House of Representatives has finally been officially disclosed.

This was as the National Legislative Institute released document showing what each of the federal lawmakers earn monthly.

The document, which also compared the salaries of the lawmakers to what obtains in nine other countries, indicated that Nigerian lawmakers earn one of the least salaries among legislators in the world, as against the notion that their pay was outrageous.

The figure shows that while a Nigerian Senator gets an annual basic salary of N2,026,400,00 a member of the Nigerian House of Representatives goes home with N1,985,212, 50 per year.

When added to their other allowances, a Senator takes home N12, 902, 360.00 while their House of Representatives counterpart goes home with N9,525,985.50 annually.

When added together, Nigeria, for the four-year tenure which the lawmaker stay in the NASS, spends a total of N1, 406,357,240.00 as basic salary on the 109 Senators and N3,428,994,780.00 on the 360 members of the House of Representatives.

The breakdown of the allowances are on: Vehicle fuelling/maintenance, Constituency, Domestic Staff, Personal Assistant, Entertainment, Recess, Utilities, Newspaper/Periodicals, Houses Maintenance, Wardrobe, Estacode, Duty Tour, which attract more money available to the lawmakers than their basic salaries.

Also the federal government spends spends N2,625, 810,000.00 on accommodation, vehicle loans, furniture and severance gratuity on the 109 senators and N8,575,920,000.00 on the 360 House of Representatives members for their four year tenure.

This brings the total expenditure of the government to N33, 992, 360 for the senators and N33,347, 985, 50 on the members of the HoR.

Read also:

The figures are lower, according to the NILS, compared to what their counterparts in eight other countries earn.

However monies from their oversight functions and other sources make them big earners.

The NILS document also show that lawmakers in the Philippines earn the highest annual basic salary of $4, 497,957, followed by their counterparts in the United States of America where a Senator goes home with $3,409,422 while a member of the US House of Representatives takes $1,429,909 home annually.

Lawmakers in Kenya earn $968,013 per annum followed by their counterparts in Australia who take home $646,230 while those in the United Kingdom go home with £494,285.43.

Lawmakers from India earn $474,484, Singapore with $253,469, and Tanzania with $230,961.

RipplesNigeria …without borders, without fears

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