Salaries to Be Increased for President, VP, Senate President, Governors Top Government Officials

Nigeria’s President, Vice President, Senate President, Chief Justice of Nigeria, Governors and other government officials are set have an upward review of their salaries.

The development comes after the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) revealed that it has concluded arrangements to review the salaries and allowances to the mentioned class of government workers.

Mohammed Bello Shehu, Chairman of RMAFC, disclosed the plan during a courtesy visit to the chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), the Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal in his office in Abuja.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), however, condemned the decision of the RMAFC noting that the N30,000 minimum wage for civil servants is nowhere near the humongous amount politicians are receiving as salaries and allowances.

According to NLC, civil servants in the national, state and local government areas also deserve salary review in line with prevailing economic challenges.

Clarifying the need for the pay raise, Bello noted that the functions of RMAFC in paragraph 32(D) of part 1 to the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, empower the commission to determine the remuneration appropriate to political, public and judicial office holders in the country.

He said the last time the review was carried out was in 2008, which makes it long overdue for a review.

Tambuwal in the statement released by the commission was quoted to have commended the readiness of the RMAFC to commence the process for the review of the remuneration exercise.

The Sokoto State Governor claimed that the salaries of judges in the country were one of the least in public service.

He congratulated Shehu on his new appointment as RMAFC chairman.

Tambuwal noted that the commission is one of the constitutional bodies in the country that has been underfunded over the years, thereby making it difficult for it to function properly in monitoring all the revenue accruals into and from the federation account.

The chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum stressed that the commission should rather be funded on a first-line charge to enable it to go into digital monitoring and tracking of all accruable revenues into the federation account, thereby increasing revenues for sharing among the three tiers of government.

The current annual basic salaries of public office holders are:

• The President N14,058,820 per annum (p.a.)
• Vice President N12,126,290p.a.
• Ministers, SGF, HoS, Chairmen of Constitutional bodies N7,801,640:00 p.a.
• Ministers of State and members of Constitutional bodies N7,536,683 p.a.
• Special Advisers including speech writers N7,091,493p.a.

The listed salaries do not include other allowances like accommodation, furniture, duty tour allowance, estacode, medicals, severance gratuity, leave and motor vehicle loan and what goes to their domestic staff among others.

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Salaries to Be Increased for President, VP, Senate President, Governors Top Government Officials