The Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against
Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), has asked Senate President
Ahmed Lawan to stop misleading Nigerians, adding that senators earn
N15m monthly and not N750,000 as claimed by the Senate
President.
Lawan had said on Tuesday that there was no such thing as ‘jumbo
pay’, adding that he earns N750,000 as salary.
Speaking with our correspondent on Wednesday, however, Sagay
said Nigerians were more interested in how much senators take home
monthly in salary and allowances.
The senior advocate said Lawan was only speaking half truth
because everyone knows that the bulk of the money earned by
senators is embedded in their allowances.
Sagay said, “He (Lawan) knows that nobody will take him
seriously. I respect and like him but what he has done is to give
half-truth. He is telling us the actual salary without mentioning
anything about the allowances.
“That’s where the jumbo pay comes in when you talk of building,
furniture, domestic this or that, 15 items and those items alone
bring everything up to N13.5m a month. So, simply mentioning the
base salary, which brings it over N14m, is not sufficient.
“So, technically, he’s right, that’s their salary. But what is
his income, take-home pay, at the end of the month? It’s about N15m
and we are not including so many other things we need not talk
about now.
The senior advocate said the presiding officers of the National
Assembly earn more than ordinary members.
He, therefore, asked Lawan to come clean.
“Not only that; that leadership of the two houses earn a lot
more — tremendous amounts. I don’t really want to go into issues
not to create controversy but what he’s saying now is pure
technical truth about salary but not about allowances, which is
where the jumbo really is,” Sagay said.
The PACAC chairman, who was the first to expose the jumbo pay of
federal lawmakers, said he was still trying to ascertain the
allowances of principal officers.
He said, “What I have not been able to do is give details of
what the leadership earn. There is the leadership aspect that I
hadn’t revealed — the excess that the Senate leader (President) and
deputy Senate leader, leader of the house; the same thing applying
to the House (of Representatives).
“What they get — the current ones — that I have not been able to
release. I had the details of the previous house. They were
mindboggling; we are talking of one person getting up to N280m a
year in allowances for his position. But I don’t know what they had
during the Saraki era or what the present group are going to award
themselves.”
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