•Must we look for a lens to know what our legislators (with oversight function) earn?
When The Economist published the damning report about the stupendous pay Nigeria's federal legislators take home annually, it probably said nothing new. Nigerians have themselves alleged that their federal legislators must be some of the most pampered in the world. The difference in The Economist's report is that the magazine put figures to its claims which no one is yet to deny. Although the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) is saddled with the responsibility of fixing their salaries alongside those of other public officers, the fact is, the legislators cart home monthly far more money than the commission recommended for them under different guises.
According to The Economist, a Nigerian legislator receives an annual salary of about $189,000, (an equivalent of N30 million) while their counterparts in Britain earn about $105,400 yearly; United States ($174,000), France ($85,900), South Africa ($104,000), Kenya ($74,500), Saudi Arabia ($64,000) and Brazil ($157,600). Other yearly salary details published by The Economist are those of lawmakers in Ghana ($46,500), Indonesia ($65,800), Thailand ($43,800), India ($11,200), Italy ($182,000), Bangladesh ($4,000), Israel ($114,800), Hong Kong ($130,700), Japan ($149,700), Singapore ($154,000), Canada ($154,000), New Zealand ($112,500), Germany ($119,500), Ireland ($120,400), Pakistan ($3,500), Malaysia ($25,300), Sweden ($99,300), Sri Lanka ($5,100), Spain ($43,900) and Norway ($138,000).
Going by these figures posted on the magazine's website on July 19, it is clear that Nigeria's federal lawmakers earn by far more than their counterparts in 29 countries whose data were analysed by the magazine, comprising mainly prosperous countries as well as key developing ones. And these are in absolute terms. When we consider the ratio of what our National Assembly members earn to the gross domestic product (GDP) per person, the incongruity becomes the more flabbergasting.
For instance, the N30million each that our federal lawmakers earn per annum is, according to The Economist, 116 times the country's GDP per person while that of a British parliamentarian is just 2.7 times. Even Australian lawmakers, with $201,200 annual salary (the only country where the legislators earn more than Nigeria's), their salaries are only three times their country's GDP per person.
This is one of the issues. If legislators in prosperous countries earn incomes that are a function of their GDP per person and that of Nigeria is so disproportionate to the country's GDP per person, then, there is a problem, a big one at that. It is scandalous that legislators earn such humongous pay in a country where the majority live on less than $2 a day. Perhaps it is the guilty conscience arising from this indefensible emoluments that is making our legislators not to come clean on their worth.
When a total of N150 billion was voted for the National Assembly in the 2013 national budget without a breakdown which should have shown at least a summary of the legislators' earnings and a newspaper wrote to the National Assembly requesting for the breakdown under the FOI Act, the National Assembly refused to honour the request.
Clearly, this pay structure is indefensible. Though not a part-time job, how many times do they sit in a year? They get paid for committee jobs, they get fabulous estacode and duty tour allowance per night. There are other packages, including severance package for a job that lasts four years and best, eight years!
Though we now know the figures for the legislature, it is probably true the executive's pay is no less bloated than the legislature's. Yet, service delivery is as poor as the pay is rich!
This is at the root of the do-or-die attitude by people willing to contest elections into the National Assembly. Many people go there because they have come to see it as the honey pot where people do so little for so much return. We urge the national legislators to do self-adjustment in view of the indefensibility of this pay structure. They do not have to wait until Nigerians begin formal protests like the Kenyans have had to do when confronted with a similar challenge. Nigerians do not have to go looking for lens to see what their representatives earn; people who carry out oversight functions on others must also come plain before the electorate.
