Nigerian Senators reject reduction of salaries and allowances.

The Senate on Wednesday suspended
consideration of the report of its Finance
committee following sharp disagreements
among members over the pay cut
recommended by the panel.

Punch learnt that the senators during a two-
hour deliberation behind closed doors, resolved
to reject the reduction of salaries and
allowances as recommended by the Senator
James Manager’s committee.
The senators, according to one of them who
confided in our correspondent, said it was not
possible to accept pay cut with other
beneficiaries of the N120bn National a$$embly
annual budget not doing same.The senator said
that his colleagues accordingly resolved to
reject the report because the recommendations
were not practicable.
Some other senators who also spoke to The
PUNCH on condition of anonymity said further
consideration of the finance committee report
was stepped down because many of their
colleagues rejected the contents of the report.
On what transpired at the closed- door session,
Senator Matthew Urhoghide (PDP Edo South),
said senators told themselves the truth at the
session on the need to be very cautious on
accepting reduction of salaries and allowances.
Urhoghide said that majority of the senators
agreed that “funny allowances” like the monthly
N42,000 wardrobe allowance should be cut off
completely.
He said, “Yes, as recommended by the
committee, all senators agreed that there must
be openness in Senate budget and by
extension, that of the National a$$embly.“At
the same time, many reasoned that why should
we further reduce our budget when already,
N30bn has been reduced from the traditional
150bn that it used to be for all the seven
different organs of the National a$$embly. “All
of us have people in our constituencies and
financial requests from them keep piling up on
a daily basis, the reality of which made steps
to be redirected, otherwise, some of us may
stop coming here.”
The committee, it was learnt, also
recommended the publication of all the
payments accruable to each senator on a
quarterly basis.