8th NASS Staffers Cry Out Over Non-payment Of Salaries, Allowances

This was according to investigations carried out by our correspondent which revealed that all has not been well in the National Assembly.

According to the report, salaries and allowances are not been paid on time, the legislative aides have also been denied quarterly trainings in addition to 28-day to quarterly duty tour allowances.

Our investigations also revealed that while the aides are being denied their dues, their principals are regularly paid their constituency allowances of between N33, 000,000 and N45, 000,000 to each member of the House and Senate, respectively.

A number of aides who pleaded anonymity expressed disappointment with principal officers of both the Senate and House of Representatives, which according to them have connived with the management of NASS to undermine the welfare of the aides.

They wondered why the salaries of other civil servants could be paid on the 25th as directed by President Mohammadu Buhari while the staff of the National Assembly is being paid on the second week of the next month.

They also explained that the 28-day allowance paid to them at the beginning of each Assembly was stopped half way. ”Only levels 8 to 14 had been paid;” said a senior legislative aide who declined to give his name. 

The staff further revealed that the aides are usually paid duty tour allowance (DTA) at the beginning of every quarter which has not been effected since the beginning of this Assembly.

According to him, those earning between levels 8 and 14 receive N75, 000 while levels 15 and above are paid quarterly DTA of N100, 000 each.

“We used to have quarterly trainings to prepare us for legislative duties needed to assist our principals and that we have been denied”. He added.

Speaking also, an aide who seemed upset criticized Senator Bukola Saraki and his counterpart Yakubu Dogara, this was mainly due to the recent jack up of their tax deductions to 50% by the management without any explanation.

According to him, the 8th National Assembly produced the worst leaders since the beginning of this democratic dispensation in terms of the well-being of legislative workers.

He noted that the allegations by the former Appropriation Committee Chairman Hon. Abdumumini Jubrin could not be faulted for describing the National Assembly as an institutionalized corruption, adding that it was high time the National Assembly was probed.

He stated that the legislative aides were being enslaved by both the management and the leadership because of the clause in their appointment letters which states that their engagements were at the mercy of their principals.

“The clause allows a legislator to disengage his aide at the slightest excuse without considerations. All he needs to do is to just submit fresh replacement to any aide he intends to drop and that will be it.

“Can you see the hypocrisy of our legislators? They summon agencies everyday for casualisation and wrongful termination of appointments of workers while they claim to be fighting for the ordinary people but their aides don’t deserve better deal,” said another aide who claimed to have served three Assemblies.

The fear of the implications of this particular clause, it was reliably gathered, makes it impossible for the aides to resist any treatment meted to them by the management.

There were also indications that the permanent staff of the National Assembly are equally not satisfied with the way things are done in both chambers in terms of trainings and allowances.

He decried the high level of corruption in the upper and lower chamber, citing the veering of votes as a common occurrence in the legislative arm of government.

He explained that it was ironical that the same legislators would always declare as criminal any agency that veers votes without coming to NASS to seek approval but the NASS sub heads are veered without such recourse.

He urged the executive and Judiciary to look into the allegations of the former Chairman, House of Representatives Appropriation Committee, Abdulmumin Jibrin, stressing that the war against corruption by the President Mohammadu Buhari administration would not be regarded as serious without critically examining the case.

He added that both the present and past leaders of the National Assembly need to be probed, as they own properties and houses in and outside the country.