As the debate over the salaries and allowances for federal lawmakers continue to drawn concerns, the lawmaker representing Kano South, Senator Sumaila Kawu, has said lawmakers earn over N21m each monthly.
The revelation countered the claims by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) which pegged the salary and allowance of federal lawmakers at N1 million each monthly.
But in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service, Kawau said the official pay of N1 million fixed by RMAFC drops to around N600,000 after deductions but there are other allowances that take their total pay to N21 million per month.
He spoke 24 hours after RMAFC, the body empowered by law to fix salaries and allowances of political office-holders, claimed that each of the 109 senators in the upper chamber receives a total of N1.06m in salary and allowances per month.
RMAFC Chairman, Mohammed Shehu, said this as a form of clarification in response to recent controversies over the real amount each lawmaker earns per month.
The renewed debate followed the revelation by former President Olusegun Obasanjo that it was unjust and immoral for lawmakers to fix their own salaries and allowances.
But in his BBC Hausa interview, Kawu said, “The amount of salary received per month is less than N1 million. If there are cuts, it comes back to about N600,000. In the senate, each senator is given N21 million every month as the cost of running his office.”
The lawmaker said the allowances include office running, newspaper money, local travel and others.
The lawmakers had responded saying RAMFC fixes their allowances.
The allowances of federal lawmakers had been shrouded in controversy until a former Kaduna Central Senator, Shehu Sani, had disclosed that each Senator collects a monthly running cost of N13.5m in addition to the monthly N750,000 prescribed by the commission in the 8th Senate which he was part of from 2015-2019.
