Ministers, others to fuel, maintain vehicles with N4.1bn in four years

Ministers, federal lawmakers, Auditor General of the Federation, Accountant General of the Federation, senior judges and some others will receive about N4.1bn for fuel and vehicle maintenance in the next four years, findings by Saturday PUNCH have shown.

A Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission document obtained by our correspondent revealed that annually, each minister would receive N1,519,800; minister of state would receive N1,468,185; Special Advisers, N1,457,156.25; while the Auditor General of the Federation, Accountant General of the Federation and each of the Federal permanent secretaries would receive N1,444,398.75 annually.

This implies that annually, the 32 ministers would receive N48,633,600; the 13 ministers of state would receive N19,086,405; the five Special Advisers to President Bola Tinubu would receive N7,285,781.25; while the Auditor General of the Federation, Accountant General of the Federation and the about 50 federal permanent secretaries would receive N75,108,735.

Also, each senator would receive the equivalence of what a minister gets, being N1,519,800 per annum. Thus, the 109 senators would receive N165,658,200 annually; while the 360 members of the House of Representatives would receive N536,007,240 at N1,488,909 annually per lawmaker in the lower chamber.

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Similarly and relying on the information on their respective websites, each of the 12 justices of the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice of Nigeria; the 73 judges of the Court of Appeal, including the Appeal Court President; the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory and the 36 states, President National Industrial Court; Grand Khadi, FCT Sharia Court of Appeal, among others would get N1,496,572.50. This translates to N187,071,562.5 per annum.

For the highlighted positions, the cost amounts to N1,038,851,523.75 per annum and N4,155,406,095 in four years.

The RMAFC document is titled, ‘Remuneration package for political, public and judicial office holders (February 2007 to June 2009)’. Even though the provisions in the document were to have been reviewed in 2009, findings showed that it is still operative because it has yet to be reviewed.

The cost of fuel has become a matter of concern for many Nigerians following the removal of petrol subsidy by the President, Bola Tinubu, on May 29. Since then, the price of fuel has risen from N162 per litre to between N570 and N617.

Commenting on the issue, the Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre and Head of Transition Monitoring Group, Auwal Rafsanjani, noted that public officials should be sensitive to the plight of Nigerians. He said compromises should be made also by the elite.

Rafsanjani said, “People in public service are elected or appointed to serve, so there must be mechanisms that allow for proper accountability. There is no free money in government; public servants must get rid of such mentality. Nigerians are going through a lot and leaders must be sensitive to their plight.”

Also, the National President, Trade Union Congress, Festus Osifo, noted that there was no sense of urgency by the Federal Government in addressing the plight of Nigerians.

“Nigerians believe you are asking us to keep making sacrifices but they have not seen the same sacrifices from the political class,” he stated.