By Daniel Idonor, Abuja
FORMER Chairman of Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) Hamman Tukur  yesterday blamed the Clerk of the National Assembly, Alhaji Salisu Maikasuwa for the alleged huge emolumements of Federal legislators which are above the statutory amount due to them.

Also, Senator Jibril Aminu while exonerating himself and his colleagues from the allegation of milking the country, said the Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was right not to apologise over the comments he made since he was quoting from an authentic government source.

In a radio a programme “Political Platform” in Abuja, Tukur said the approved annual basic salary of a House of Representative member is N794,084.94 while that of a Senator is N954,096.07, and declared that anything above that was illegal and the Clerk of the National Assembly should be made to answer for it.

The RMAFC has already denied giving any approval for the payment of enhanced remuneration package for members of the National Assembly (NASS) to warrant their accessing 25 percent of the country’s total Federal annual expenditure profile.

Releasing the approved emolument, as provided for the Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances, Etc) [Amendment Act, 2008, the RMFC said the that the lawmakers had, in January 2009, turned down an Executive Bill that sought to cut down all political officers’ emolument in the wake of the global economic and financial crises between 2007 and 2009.

The Bill was perfected by the immediate past Chairman of the Commission, Tukur, who earlier raised alarm last year on the growing figure of N1.3 trillion total annual emolument, out of which allowances gulped the lion share, with basic salaries accounting for only N90 billion.

Senator Aminu in a chat with newsmen said the allegation was deliberate as it was sponsored to smear the legislatures, adding there was an orchestrated plan to fight the legislators.

“Of course it is false. If I earn that much my house would have looked very different from what you see here. Four Million Naira a month is nonsense. You see, since I said it in the Senate, I will repeat myself here; there is a war against the legislature by interested people principally the Executive, some in the Federal and others in the states,principally Governors. And they have corralled a lot of troops from the Media , political commentators and others to fight us.

“In doing this, they use all sorts of names on us. One Senator said his wife came home weeping because she was called a thief by her friend. Since the husband was a thief, she of course obviously became a thief also by association. Where do we have this kind of Money? Do we print money?

Is the treasury in the National Assembly? I thought our money was printed in the mint under the

supervision of the CBN, stored by the CBN and spent on the orders of the Executive? How could the National Assembly have so much access to money? Every kobo we spend in the National Assembly comes from the Executive.

“They talk as if we have got some kind of machine guns and we go round taking government money. How do we do it? Can anyone in the name of God please tell us?  The Ministers have a lot more access to money than we have, the Governors too.

“One Governor was saying to a Senator ‘You people get N53 million every quarter and we get N3 billion every month’. What do they do with the money? It is wrong. This is just a war against members of the National Assembly which is very well known to all Nigerians. Recently it was intensified in the form of electoral bill where we felt that in”.

Senator Aminu on the refusal of Sanusi to apologise, said he was not surprised at the attitude of the governor of the apex bank, saying he (Sanusi) understands what it means to apologize.

He said the invitation extended to the CBN Governor was not to crucify him but to put the records straight, adding “Sanusi is a very principled and logical person. Do you know the implication of apologizing, you are tying yourself. He felt he was using information given to him supposedly by a competent government source in the ministry of finance, so you cannot crucify him for using information

from a competent source of government.

“The only thing that would have been wrong is if his comment was made at an international event outside the country”.

Aminu also described Sanusi as victim of circumstances who should not be crucified  even as he  noted that the national assembly members are responsible enough to  shift the chaff from the grains.

“He is a victim of circumstance because he used the information from the best source available, how can he apologize. The National Assembly is a very reasonable body from the House to the Senate with people who will be able to sieve the grains from the chaff”.

Former President Umaru Musa Yar’adua and members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) it would be recalled had volunteered to take a 20 percent cut in their basic salaries before the enactment of the pay cut law, before it was aborted.

Under the proposed pay cut, the president’s total annual emolument would have dropped from N14.058 million to N11.598 million; his deputy, from N12.126 million to N10.004 million; ministers, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF)/ Head of Service/ chairmen

of federal establishments, from N7.801 million to N5.471 million.

The package was in addition to other benefits, including official vehicles and fueling, personal assistants entertainment, utilities,  and domestic staff.

Similarly, the Senate president’s current annual emolument of N8.694 million would have come down to N5.589 million; the deputy Senate president from N8.082 million to N5.195 million, while those of the senators would have moved from N12.766 million to N8.206 million; Senate committee chair/ vice, from N12.867 million to N8.308 million respectively.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, would have had his annual emolument also sliced from the current N4.954 million to N4.334 million; his deputy would have had his packaged trimmed from N4.574 million to N4.002 million, while members would have had their current N9.529 million slashed to N6.352 million and House Committee/ Vice from N9.628 million to N6.541 million respectively.

The emoluments of the principal officers of the Legislature exclude other pecks of office that are not spelt out in the law.