Beitrag vom 04.07.2015

The Sun

Nigeria

Review of political/judicial officers’ emoluments

By Our Reporter on July 4, 2015 Editorial

It is, indeed, fortuitous that at a time Nigerians are expressing serious concern about the perceived astronomical earnings of political office holders, the body statutorily empowered to determine the remuneration of such officials — the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) — is conducting a review of their emoluments.

The Abdullahi Inde-led Committee has been mandated to review the Remuneration Act, 2008, which prescribed the present regime of salaries and allowances for political, judicial and other public office holders, that is the subject of public agitation today. This is a very important assignment, considering the current mood of the country and the serious challenges in the polity. Hence, the Committee must do a thorough job, and not let the nation down.

In carrying out this onerous task, the Committee will do well to undertake wide and holistic consultations with all critical stakeholders, including the media, the three arms of government, the national and state assemblies, state and local governments, Labour, the federal and state public services, and the general public. Interested stakeholders should also send memoranda to the review Committee, as it has requested. At the end of the day, RMAFC will discover that Nigerian political office holders earn far too much money for the work they do. More critically, they earn much more than the nation’s economy can sustain.

It is, indeed, difficult for many Nigerians to turn their eyes away from the fact that our political office holders take much more than their share of the national cake as entitlements. A Senator, for example, earns N14.9 million a month, which translates to N498,630.13 per day, compared to a British MP who earns an equivalent of N1.3 million a month, according to The Economist of London.

It appears that our legislators are unwittingly in competition with the executive arm of government. Political office holders at the Executive arm of government often abuse their offices and privileges for financial gains. Huge sums tagged “security votes”, which run into hundreds of millions of naira, are spent without recourse to any authority or accounting processes.

Of course, the power to award contracts and dispense favours is also widely abused, turning many members of the Executive at all levels of government into instant multi-millionaires.

In a country where the overwhelming majority of the people live on less than one US dollar a day, this is not acceptable. That is why we believe that the present review has to go beyond determining the salaries and allowances of all political and other public office holders, to the setting up of a template for the national wage structure.

Should public office holders not hold their offices at the pleasure of the people? In Nigeria, we have an ironical situation where these officers who are supposed to serve the public are served by the public, as they dip their hands into the public till at will and without caring about the generality of the people.
For public morality and long term health of the nation, there must be a correlation between the maximum national wage and the minimum wage. In France, the minimum wage is reportedly 26 per cent of the wage of Members of Parliament (MPs), who are equivalents of Nigeria’s federal legislators. In Britain, it is 21.6 per cent of the salaries of MPs. But, in Nigeria, the national minimum wage is 0.13 per cent of a National Assembly member’s salary. Where the gap is obscene as it appears to be the case in Nigeria, there is bound to be a disruption of national life as we are presently witnessing in over 23 states where workers are owed salaries and retirees have not collected their pensions for several months. This is why RMAFC must handle this assignment with diligence.

It is, perhaps, also necessary for Nigeria to review the minimum wage which was set at N18,000 in 2009. We must not forget that Organised Labour, at the time, asked for N52,000.

While the dwindling economy may not support an upward review at this time, it is time to bring the earnings of our public office holders in line with best global practice in which the gap between the high-end earners and the lowest earners is never as wide as we have it in Nigeria.

The committee has until September to do its work and we hope that at the end of it, it will come up with recommendations that would be acceptable to all and truly reflect the present economic realities in the country. A basic economic theory says that nations do better by cutting costs than seeking to earn or borrow more to finance ostentatious living.

We are glad to note that some state chief executives are already taking the initiative to cut the costs of governance. States like Kaduna, Adamawa, Bauchi, Abia and a host of others have cut the salaries of the governors and their cabinets by 50 per cent. This is a welcome gesture, and we expect other states and indeed, all levels of government to follow suit. This should be without prejudice, however, to what the RMAFC finally comes up with. We expect its recommendations to be far-reaching enough to achieve the desired objective of significantly reducing the cost of governance, to free funds for other developmental initiatives.