Government Officials Earn N1.126trillion Annually – Reports

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About N1,126,614,234,434. 38 is expended annually on salaries and allowances of political office holders by the Federal Government, the 36 states and the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs).

The 17,774 beneficiaries include President, Vice President, Senate President, the House of Representatives Speaker, Deputy Speaker, ministers, governors, senators, members of the House of Representatives, judges, principal officers and members of the state Houses of Assembly, commissioners and local government chairmen and their councillors.

Salaries take N94.959 billion and allowances cost about N1,031,654,689,033.18 (N1.031trillion).

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Trade Union Congress (TUC), Action Aid Nigeria(AAN) and 40 others have asked the Federal Government to reduce the cost of governance.

These facts are contained in a new document, “Policy Brief: Cost of Governance Series (2)”, which was compiled by the 43 civil society groups under the Citizens Wealth Platform (CWP).

The document, dated October 2015 and exclusively obtained by The Nation, has been presented to the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly.

Based on the statistics of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), the breakdown of the list of the 17,474 beneficiaries includes Federal Executive(472); Federal Legislature(464); Federal Judiciary(142); State Executive(2,664); State Legislature (1,152); State Judiciary(792); LGA Executive (3,096); and LGA Legislature (8,692).

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The Policy Brief document reads in part: “The total number of persons benefiting from this fat remuneration in all tiers of government is put at 17, 474 and it costs the Federal Government N173.656billion every year.

“ For state governments, the total cost is N360.091billion while local governments pay N592.865billion every year.

“This raises issues of social justice and the relativity of their remuneration to that of the workers in the same Nigerian economy. The N173.656billion required at the federal level to pay these public officials who are 1,078 in number will pay the N18,000 minimum wage of 9,647,574 workers.

“Of course, the remuneration of other categories of public workers did not take into consideration the need to give them a living wage that will pay for a dignified existence.

“This foregoing raises issues of Social Justice in a country of about 170million persons; whether it is right to dedicate this quantum of resources to service thus infinitesimal percentage of the population.

“For all qualifying for this jumbo pack across the states and local governments of the federation, their number comes up to 17,474 which is 0.010 per cent of the population. The Federal government spends N173.656billion for the huge salaries which in 2015 amounts to 3.87 per cent of the budget.

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“There is a wide disparity between the very low minimum wage and apparently outrageous fringe benefits and allowances of these special public officers. The salaries and allowances of these public officers are in far contrast to the minimum wage approved for Grade Level 1 civil servants.

“There should be an equitable relationship between the highest paid, lowest paid and averagely paid public officials.”

The NLC, NBA, TUC and 40 others said the opportunity cost of such a huge expenditure on political office holders is great for the nation.

The document added: “The sums spent over and above what is reasonable in maintaining these public office holders could have been spent on other items of public expenditure.