The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC)has announced that plans are underway for the review of the salaries of political office holders in Nigeria, describing their current earnings as inadequate, unrealistic, and outdated in the face of rising responsibilities and economic challenges.
The Chairman of the commission, Mohammed Shehu, disclosed that President Bola Tinubu presently earns ₦1.5m monthly, while ministers receive less than N1m — figures that have remained unchanged since 2008.
“You are paying the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria ₦1.5m a month, with a population of over 200 million people. Everybody believes that it is a joke,” Shehu told the gathering.
“You cannot pay a minister less than ₦1m per month since 2008 and expect him to put in his best without necessarily being involved in some other things. You pay either a CBN governor or the DG ten times more than you pay the President,” the RMAFC chief said.
“That is just not right. Or you pay him [the head of an agency] twenty times higher than the Attorney-General of the Federation. That is absolutely not right.”
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had kicked against the plans by the RMAFC to conduct an upward review of the salaries of political office holders, saying the proposal ignores the country’s worsening inequality and the hidden perks that already inflate earnings in government.
The RMAFC boss, however, explained that the commission is not responsible for setting the minimum wage for civil servants or public sector workers, but was constitutionally mandated to determine the salaries of political, judicial, and legislative office holders.
Credit: channelstv.com
