Date Published: 04/27/10

2011 Election: Senators want N10.9 billion quarterly

...As Reps share N14 billion

Hon. Dimeji Bankole, Speaker, House of Representatives

Senate President David Mark

Members of the Nigeria Senate are asking for an upward review of their basic allowance from N43Million quarterly to a staggering N100 Million each to enable them tackle perceived and real opponents ahead of the 2011 general elections.

If the proposal sails through as expected, it means the Senators would be sharing a whooping sum of N10.9 Billion from the nation’s treasury. These figures do not include non-regular allowances—vehicle loan, furniture allowance, estacode, duty tour allowance and severance gratuity—which are paid separately to each legislator as they become due.

This is coming on the heels of a recent increase in the allowances of members of the House of Representatives from N25 Million to almost N40 Million for the same purpose, representing the sum N14 Billion shared by the lawmakers.

According to a remuneration package released in 2009 by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), each of the 107 senators besides the Senate President and his deputy will receive N11 million in basic salaries and regular allowances every year while a member of the House of Representatives will get N9.9 million. Previously, a senator was getting N17 million while a House member was collecting N14.99 million.

The new agitation by the senators for an upward allowance increase is not in line with the remuneration package prepared by the RMAFC.

Sources within the senate told pointblanknews.com that already some members of the Senate have started mobilizing their colleagues to arm twist the senate leadership to approve the increment.

A senator from the North Central state is said to be leading the pack of Senators making the demand.

According to Pointblanknews.com findings, quarterly allocation to each member of the House of Representatives has increased from about N25Million to close to N40 Million in the last three years while those of senators have remained in the neighborhood of between N35 million to N45 Million within the same period.

Sources told Pointblanknews.com that the leadership of the House of
Representatives only recently, approved a special monetary package for members of the House to acquire Prado Jeeps as a source puts it “to help them in their oversight functions.” As at the time of going to press it was not clear if the funds have already been provided to the lawmakers and how much was specifically allocated to each of the 360 members of the House.

According to a source who would not want to be named, the Senators quest is in line with their findings that members of the House of Representatives are being well financially rewarded by their leadership and have wondered that same can also happen in the senate.

In a text message currently going round among Senators and exclusively obtained by Pointblanknews.com, the arrow head in the push for the allowance increment is calling on his colleagues to put pressure on the leadership of the Senate to increase the allowance of members because “this is election year.”

According to the text message: “My distinguished, each member in the House of Representatives has improved earnings from N25million to N43Million. This is an improvement of forty percent. Reps members are also getting on Prado 4 by 4. This is election year. We should rise up and demand from the leadership what is due us. Our entitlement in the budget is nothing less than N100Million per senator. David Mark leadership will open up if we request for it. N100million or nothing”.