We don’t want to pay for cars – Reps

Members of the House of Representatives on Wednesday said they were aggrieved over a provision that they should repay the N7m to be spent on purchasing cars for them.

The reps, in protest, on Tuesday had rejected a request by President Goodluck Jonathan for an increase in the salaries and allowances of his Chief Economic Adviser and the National Security Adviser.

Chairman of the House Ad hoc Committee on Media and Publicity, Mr. Opeyemi Bamidele, said the members’ protest on Tuesday was not a reaction to the Executive’s decision to slash their running cost. He revealed that the protest was against a requirement that the money expended on buying cars for them would be treated as a loan.



Briefing journalists, Bamidele said, “The main issue is the money for the purchase of the cars to be used for the service of the House.

“This was the only complaint that was raised; nobody protested the reduction of the running cost,” he said.

He said members sought to know why they should pay for cars bought for the official duties of the House when other categories of public officials like judges and ministers received money to buy vehicles for official functions without treating same as loan.

Lawmakers in the Sixth Assembly had purchased Peugeot 407 cars at a unit cost of N6.1m for committee activities and sold the cars to themselves for a paltry N850,000 at the end of their tenure.

Bamidele said the clarification was necessary to correct the impression that they lawmakers were unhappy because their running cost was slashed. He added that while their running cost had indeed been reduced, their salaries remained untouched.

He said their running cost had been cut by 63 per cent and that the lawmakers had accepted the slash in good faith.

“There has been a downward reduction of our running cost. This is different from our salaries. Our salaries have not been reduced.

“The salaries are fixed by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission.”

Under the monetisation policy of the Federal Government, accommodation, transport and furniture of government officials are monetised.

Officials are expected to pay for these services from their pockets because the cost would have been built into their salaries.

Where funds are raised to buy cars for lawmakers (as in the case of the N7m), they are treated as loans and must be repaid.

The lawmakers, while rejecting the President’s request for an increase in the pay of his advisers, had said that the request was not in tandem with the 40 per cent reduction in budgetary expenditure for the year.

The President had written the House seeking to upgrade the salaries and allowances of the two advisers to be “at par with those of ministers.”

He explained that the request was in compliance with Section 151 (2) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).

The section reads, “The number of such Advisers and their remuneration and allowances shall be as prescribed by law or by resolution of the National Assembly.”

Jonathan added, “My request is predicated on the peculiar nature of the functions the holders of these offices perform.

“These officials, among other things, chair committees and bodies whose members include serving ministers, in addition to their participating at council meetings.”

But, the Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, had hardly finished reading the letter when some members of the House shouted “no, no, no way.”

Others murmured that the same President who had slashed the 2011 budget was seeking to enhance the pay package of his advisers.

The Executive had slashed the recurrent expenditure of the budget by 40 per cent across board. The decision had affected the running cost of the lawmakers.

For example, the quarterly running cost officially fixed at N27.8m, dropped to around N13.7m.

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