The National Assembly management has requested the presiding officers to reduce the number of their aides by at least 60 percent as part of cost cutting measures.<\/p>\n
Senate President Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara and their deputies have hired over 400 aides, sources said.
\nSaraki is said to have over 112 aides, Dogara about 170, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu 60 and Deputy Speaker Yusuf Suleiman Lasun 58.
\nBut the assembly bureaucracy has lately asked the presiding officers and their deputies to reduce the figures drastically.
\nSources said Saraki and Dogara have been requested to cut down the numbers to 25 each while Ekweremadu and Lasun should have 17 each.
\nThe aides are in three categories – Special Advisers (SAs), Senior Special Assistants (SSAs) and Special Assistants whose salaries range between N700, 000 to over a million naira each.
\nThe special advisers earn about the same salaries as federal permanent secretaries while the others earn higher than directors in federal government establishments.
\nDaily Trust reports that two weeks ago over N10bn was paid as severance package to Senate and House legislative aides that served in the seventh assembly. The severance pay was 300 percent of their annual basic salary.
\nIn January, the presiding officers met with the National Assembly management on how to cut down on expenditures.
\nSources said the management intimated the presiding officers that they could not guarantee regular payment of salaries to such aides, especially when most of them were placed on higher grade levels.
\nDaily Trust findings revealed that the salaries of all the political appointees have not been paid since January.
\nIt was gathered that the last time the aides collected their salaries was in December.
\nMost of the aides are said to have little or even nothing to do. They hang around the National Assembly complex or stay in their colleagues\u2019 offices as they have no offices of their own.
\nA source close to the office of the Senate President explained that most of the appointments were mere \u2018political patronage.\u2019
\n\u201cThe appointments are political patronages; it is an avenue to settle supporters politically. Most of them will be collecting salaries without doing anything.
\n\u201cI know only last week two persons were recruited. They showed me their employment letters,\u201d he said.
\nDaily Trust also gathered that about 50 percent of the aides are former lawmakers who served with Dogara during the last 7th Assembly.
\nMost of them were said to have been rewarded for their support to Dogara, while a few others were nominated by some close friends to the speaker.
\n\u201cThe truth of the matter is that he (Dogara) made so many appointments. He has different manner of aides.\u201d
\nA top management staff, who preferred anonymity, told Daily Trust that it was true that the speaker over-employed.
\nIt was gathered that the National Assembly management made two suggestions to the speaker on how to manage the situation.
\nThe management told Dogara to demote most of the special advisers to senior special assistants, while majority of the senior special assistants should be demoted to personal assistants otherwise the only option would be to sack most of the appointees.
\nDailytrust.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The National Assembly management has requested the presiding officers to reduce the number of their aides by at least 60 percent as part of cost cutting measures. Senate President Bukola…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n