Salary Breakdown: The Whooping Billions Annually Earned by Senators & Reps Members Revealed

National Assembly, Abuja
At a time Nigerians are groaning under the yoke of recession,
Members of the National Assembly (NASS) comprising the
Senators and Members of House of Representatives have received
a total sum of N6.78 billion as their official salaries and
allowances in one year, investigation by Economic Confidential
has revealed.
The report obtained by Economic intelligence magazine showed
the ‘legitimate’ remuneration of the federal legislators in
compliance to the statutory approval of the Revenue Mobilisation,
Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC). The remuneration
packages include: annual salaries, accommodation, vehicle
maintenance and fuel, Personal Assistants, House maintenance,
domestic staff, entertainment and utilities allowances. Others
allowances are; Constituency allowance, Annual Leave, Hardship
allowance, wardrobe, newspapers and responsibility allowances.
A careful scrutiny of the report shows that each Senator has an
annual salary of N2.02m while a member of the House of
Representative receives N1.98mn as annual basic salary. The
basic salary of the Senate President is N2.48mn while that of the
Speaker of House of Rep is N2.47mn. The Deputy Senate President
has N2.30mn as annual basic salary while his counterpart, Deputy
Speaker earns N2.28mn annually.

In addition to the annual basic salary, each member of the
National Assembly receives 200 percent of the annual salary for
accommodation, 75 percent for vehicle maintenance, 25 percent
for Personal Assistants, 5 percent for house maintenance, 75
percent for domestic staff, 30 percent for both entertainment and
utilities. Others are, 25 percent for wardrobe, 15 percent for
newspapers and responsibility allowance of between 10, 7, and 5
percent respectively as the case may be on the position of the
legislator. While each senator receives a whopping 250 percent
for constituency allowance, member of House of Representative
gets 100% for the same annually.

In all the senate alone numbering 109 senators gulped the sum of
N1.85billion in the last one year, while the 360 members of the
House of Representatives got N4.93 billion!
According to estimates from the report, there are Non-Regular
allowances federal legislators are entitled to. They include
furniture and severance gratuity which are due only once in four
years. Other non-regular allowances include Estacode allowances
which is paid in US Dollars for foreign trips and Duty Tour
allowance which is paid in Naira for local trips within Nigeria.
Further analysis by Economic Confidential reveals that an average
Nigerian worker with a minimum wage of N18,000 a month will
have to work for four years before earning the utility allowance
for one legislator. Unless the remuneration package is reviewed
downward or upward by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and
Fiscal Commission, the legislators will continue to enjoy the
current official salaries and allowances.