Nigeria: How National Assembly Members Earn N6.78 Billion Annually

At a time Nigerians are groaning under the yoke
of recession, members of the National Assembly
comprising the senators and members of House
of Representatives have received a total sum of
N6.78 billion as their official salaries and
allowances in one year, investigation by
Economic Confidential has revealed.
The report obtained by the Economic
intelligence magazine showed the 'legitimate'
remuneration of the federal legislators in
compliance to the statutory approval of the
Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal
Commission (RMAFC). The remuneration
packages include: annual salaries,
accommodation, vehicle maintenance and fuel,
personal assistants, house maintenance,
domestic staff, entertainment and utilities
allowances.
Others allowances are: Constituency allowance,
annual leave, hardship allowance, wardrobe,
newspapers and responsibility allowances.
A careful scrutiny of the report showed that
each senator has an annual salary of
N2.02million while a member of House of
Representative receives N1.98million as annual
basic salary. The basic salary of the Senate
President is N2.48million while that of the
Speaker of House of Representatives is
N2.47million.

The Deputy Senate President has N2.30million
as annual basic salary while his counterpart,
Deputy Speaker earns N2.28million annually.
In addition to the annual basic salary, each
member of the National Assembly receives 200
per cent of the annual salary for
accommodation, 75 per cent for vehicle
maintenance, 25 per cent for personal
assistants, five per cent for house maintenance,
75 per cent for domestic staff, 30 per cent for
both entertainment and utilities.
Others are, 25 per cent for wardrobe, 15 per
cent for newspapers and responsibility
allowance of between 10, 7, and 5 per cent
respectively as the case may be on the position
of the legislator.
While each senator receives a whopping 250 per
cent for constituency allowance, member of
House of Representative gets 100 per cent for
the same annually.
In all, the senate alone numbering 109 senators
gulped the sum of N1.85billion annually, while
the 360 members of the House of
Representatives got N4.93 billion as total
remuneration packages.

According to estimates from the report, there
are non-regular allowances federal legislators
are entitled to.
They include furniture and severance gratuity
which are due only once in four years.
Other non-regular allowances include estacode
allowances which is paid in US dollars for
foreign trips and duty tour allowance which is
paid in naira for local trips within Nigeria.
Further analysis revealed that an average
Nigerian worker with a minimum wage of
N18,000 a month will have to work for four
years before earning the utility allowance for
one legislator.
Unless the remuneration package is reviewed
downward or upward by the RMAFC, the
legislators will continue to enjoy the current
salaries and allowances.