The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission
(RMAFC) says it will postpone the upward review of the salaries of political
office holders in the country.
The RMAFC is a federal government agency responsible for
mobilising and allocating revenue to the three tiers of government in Nigeria.
The commission also monitors the financial activities of the
federal, state, and local governments to ensure that they are in compliance
with the law.
In June, the commission said the salaries of politicians,
judicial and public office holders will be increased by 114 percent.
Speaking in an interview with NAN on Sunday, Mohammed Shehu,
chairman of the commission, said the postponement is due to current economic
challenges in Nigeria.
Shehu said the last time the review took place was in 2007
and that political office holders do not earn outrageous emoluments as speculated
by Nigerians.
“From 2008 till date there had not been any single review,”
he said.
“Last year, some individuals took the federal government to
court. These were some activists concerned about the salaries of judicial
officers.
“In the court, the judge ruled that a judge should be paid
about N10 million a month, that was the court ruling.
“We are Nigerians, we are not going to start talking about
reviewing salaries of political office holders now because of the challenges
that the government is facing.
“As a commission, we are going to do our work but we are not
going to say we will do it now.
“We will do it when
the climate is right and then we will take it forward to the stakeholders for
them to decide on what to do.”
The chairman said what people considered as outrageous
earnings of lawmakers were statutory office running costs which should be
managed by the national assembly service commission.
“I know some people will say members of the national
assembly get up to N10 million or N11 million monthly,” he said.
“Those are not salaries, they are like operating cost of
running their offices which in other societies the legislator does not have to
see because there is a structure.
“Once you get
elected, you make that structure from your constituency office to computers to
logistics to the size of your constituency.
“Wherever you have constituency office, the workers you
hire, It is the national assembly service commission that is supposed to take
care of that.”
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