The Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), has asked the President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan, to stop misleading Nigerians, adding that senators earned N15m monthly and not N750,000 as claimed by Lawan.
Lawan had on Tuesday said there was no such thing as “jumbo pay,” adding that he earns N750,000 as salary.
Speaking with our correspondent on Wednesday, however, Sagay said Nigerians were more interested in how much senators take home monthly in salaries and allowances.
He said Lawan was only speaking half-truth because everyone knew that the bulk of the money earned by senators was embedded in their allowances.
Sagay said, “I respect and like him (Lawan), but what he has done is to give half-truth. He is telling us the actual salary without mentioning anything about the allowances.
“That is where the jumbo pay comes in, when you talk of building, furniture, domestic this or that, 15 items and those items alone bring everything up to N13.5m a month. So, simply mentioning the bare salary, which brings it to over N14m, is not sufficient.
“So, technically, he is right. That is their salary. But what is his income, take-home pay, at the end of the month? It is about N15m and we are not including many other things we need talk about now.”
Sagay said presiding officers of the National Assembly earned more than ordinary members.
The PACAC chairman, who was the first to expose the jumbo pay of federal lawmakers, said he was still trying to ascertain the allowances of principal officers.
He said, “What I have not been able to do is give details of what the leadership earns. There is the leadership aspect that I hadn’t revealed – the excess that the Senate President and Deputy Senate President, leader of the house; the same thing applying to the House (of Representatives).
“What they get – the current ones – that I have not been able to release. I had the details of the previous house. They were mindboggling; we are talking of one person getting up to N280m a year in allowances for his position. But I don’t know what they had during the Saraki era or what the present group is going to do.”