The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has expressed disgust at the proposal to review upward the salaries of political office holders in Nigeria.
The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission that is empowered by law to determine the salaries of political, judicial, and legislative office holders had at a press conference on Monday in Abuja hinted of its plan to review the salaries of political office holders to the north of what obtains currently.
“You are paying the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria N1.5m a month, with a population of over 200 million people. Everybody believes that it is a joke.
“You cannot pay a minister less than N1m 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. 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.
“It’s about time that people like you and others should support the commission to come up with reasonable living salaries for ministers, DGs, and the President,” RMAFC Chairman, Mohammed Shehu said at the occasion.
To this, NLC made a response as one of its official told Punchng that the proposal is deceitful.
“The President’s salary may be about N1.5m a month, but when allowances are added, the total package can exceed N100 million.
“Allowances for medical care, housing, digital services, internet access, security, travel, and even COVID-related expenses are all buried in the system. If the government can publish the president’s salary, then it should also publish these allowances, because that is where the true burden lies,” the publication quoted the unnamed NLC official as saying.
