Until 2015, the annual allocations to the National Assembly had been N150 billion and between 2015 till date, the budget has been between N125 billion and now N134 billion.
And the ‘running cost’, which is not recognised by RMAFC, the government agency responsible for fixing salaries and allowances of public officials, may be among the items increased by the National Assembly.Despite the nation’s dwindling revenue, Mr Buhari has failed to address the earnings of the Legislature.
In 2015, he ordered RMAFC to seek a proper interpretation of its powers and address the outcry against the unreasonably high payments that lawmakers receive. And in this regard, the commission announced that lawmakers of both the Senate and House will begin to earn less than N1 million monthly. During the 2020 budget signing in 2019, the president queried the National Assembly for increasing the budget by N90 billion. He had said changes introduced by the lawmakers would affect the budget’s implementation.
In fact, the presidency in February, said the president now understands why lawmakers get jumbo pay, compared to when he was sworn in in 2015. This is even as he noted “a clear failure” on the part of the RMAFC to officially announce the entitlement of the parliamentarians, to help Nigerians calculate and make demands on their expectations of the National Assembly.
Corruption