Contrary to the general believe that Nigerian legislators
are more expensive than U.K. Parliament and U.S. Congress, the National
Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS) says it is much more expensive to
maintain legislators in the U.S. Congress and the U.K. Parliament than in
Nigeria.
Its Director-General, Dr Ladi Hamalai, who disclosed this in
an interview with NAN in Abuja on Sunday, was speaking against the backdrop of
calls for a massive cut in the remuneration of Nigerian legislators. Hamalai
said most of those calling for cut in the salaries and allowances of National
Assembly members were not informed on how much it costs to maintain a parliament.
"If you go to the United States, United Kingdom the salaries
of legislators may not be much but the budget of maintaining a single
legislator in the US Congress is much. Each legislator has a budget for
maintaining the office; each legislator is entitled to about 18 aides. This is
apart from the many committee staff and research staff that they have at their
disposal.
"We calculated the salaries of the legislator in the US
Congress plus his personal aides; just this two will amount to almost N254
million in a year. Now this is exclusive of budget for maintaining the office.
They also have claims, re-imbursables. You travel to do a town hall meeting –
these are eligible claims. So it is not really cheap maintaining the congress
in the US. Let’s even look at the UK Parliament. By the time you calculate all
the expenses, it will cost between 90 and 100 million naira to maintain a UK
parliamentarian. They have personal aides of between eight and 20 depending on
the importance of the legislator."
Hamalai allayed fears that the cost of running the
legislature in Nigeria would not have a negative impact on the economy.
"One would say yes their GDP is much higher; they can afford
it; then our criticism should not be that they do not deserve this amount of
money (paid to them); maybe you look at the implication on the economy. Now if
you even look at the wider implication on the economy, you (will) discover that
the whole budget of the National Assembly is just three per cent of the
national budget. If you calculate it – you have over four trillion naira
federal budget in a year; the National Assembly this year has 120 billion
naira; this is even less than three per cent. So is it the three per cent that
would have so much impact as to cause so much damage to the national economy? I
don’t think so."
Also reacting to the calls for the country to adopt a
unicameral legislature as a way of cutting the cost of governance, the D-G
argued that that would amount to changing the Nigeria’s system of government.
She said that subscribing to a unicameral legislature could
weaken the principle of Separation of Powers and make the executive arm of
government dictatorial.
"We need a system whereby we will have good checks and
balances. We need a strong legislature; we need a strong judiciary in this
country to make sure that everybody does the right thing," she said.
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