The Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), the Most Reverend Nicholas Okoh has advocated the abolition of huge rates of salaries and allowances for members of the National and State Houses of Assemblies as a way of greatly cutting down on the nation’s overhead expenses.
The cleric stressed that salaries and allowances of those at the National Assembly and other appointees in public offices remain a major threat to the country’s finances.
His call came against the background of the recent directive by President Muhammadu Buhari to the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to review the excessive remunerations approved for political office holders.
Reverend Okoh, who did not oppose to any legitimate measure taking by the government to block leakages in government, insisted that such action was not enough to solve the financial challenges facing the country.
Okoh, who spoke at the just concluded of a 2-day conference of Anglican Arch-Bishops and Bishops of the Northern part of Nigeria, held in Kubwa, Abuja, suggested that those in the National Assembly should be on part-time basis like in some countries to cut down the government expenditure.
“I think that, to reduce the cost of governance requires more than reducing salary, it requires a structural adjustment, that is to say, should people in parliament be there on permanent basis or part-time basis? So, that if they are there on part-time basis they earn allowances, but as it is now, they are employed in the business of lawmaking.
“Therefore, the country has to chose, if really we want to reduce the cost of governance, reducing salary is not going to be much, because the salary in itself is not much. So, what comes out of it after reduction is not going to be much.
“But if we take a much serious approach as it was being done in the past. Let those who are member of the parliament do so on part-time basis, then, it becomes possible to have a reduction of expenses being made on the lawmakers. But just reducing salary will not solve much problem.
“Aside that, there are other leakages; there is duplication in various government offices, this also needs to be looked into. So, that government would pay actually for the services it receives.” [myad]
