Ministers, legislators do not earn more than ₦1m every month - Shehu

Mohammed Bello Shehu, the Chairman of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), revealed that no Nigerian legislator or minister earns more than a million naira per month.

He said this while denying that the RMAFC’s review of remuneration is intended to raise the pay of politicians and political office holders.

Shehu during a program on Channels TV said that “There are lots of lapses there (remuneration), so this is what has informed us to do this exercise now, it is not true that we are just trying to like put a bonus or a jumbo package to president, governors and legislators, and contrary to what a lot of people perceive and believe to be so that legislators and senators have jumbo salaries, no; there is no legislator, no senator, no minister that earns over a million naira a month in Nigeria.”

The RMAFC Chairman (Shehu) stated that the remuneration review exercise was ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari in response to a recent serious agitation for a review of judge salaries, and that they are going beyond salaries to address other issues as well.

“The president set up a committee and the committee made recommendations and he ordered the Attorney General of the federation to liaise with the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission to look into this and come up with something.

“So we are not only looking at that, we feel it is time to review the entire package, review does not mean we are going to increase it or we are going to reduce it or it’s going to remain same, we are going to look at all other issues and these things will be done scientifically, so it’s not anything that is new to the commission,” Shehu added.

The RMAFC announced a few weeks ago that it had completed arrangements to begin the process of reviewing the remuneration for political, public, and judicial office holders in the country.

Shehu made the announcement, noting that the functions of the RMAFC are outlined in paragraph 32(D) of part 1 of the third schedule of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, which empowers the Commission to determine the remuneration appropriate to political, public, and judicial office holders in the country, and that the last time the review was carried out was in 2008, making it even overdue for review.