Reps Set To Protest Non-Payment Of Salaries

A precedent may be in the offing today at the House of Representatives following the inability of the House leadership to secure funds for the payment of June salary as well as second quarter allowances of lawmakers.

Independent can authoritatively report that today’s plenary is likely to be marred by the lawmakers’ engagement of the leadership in demand of their last month’s salary and quarterly allowance.

The scenario, Independent gathered, is a subtle way of declaring a strike in protest of the difficult financial situation they have found themselves.

A lawmaker, who confirmed the situation on the condition of anonymity, insisted that the planned protest is within their rights to demand what is due to them as legitimate earnings.

However, a high-ranking source within the Assembly’s bureaucracy described it as lack of patriotism on the part of lawmakers who should be better informed on the economic situation of the country.

He said, “In the past, no matter the level of delay in the payment of their entitlements, lawmakers showed some level of patriotism by patiently doing their jobs.

“But for them to want to shun their duties because they are being owed a month’s salary with a slight delay in the payment of the quarterly allowance is highly unpatriotic.”

Today’s executive session, according to the source, “is going to be explosive.”

Members are said to be disgruntled over the inability of the leadership to pull its weight to get their salaries and quarterly allowances paid by the end of June or the first week of July.

The situation, the lawmaker-source said, was seriously putting the speaker and other principal officers on edge with their colleagues who are ready to call their bluff and shun plenary until their entitlements are settled.

He complained bitterly about the negative effect of the cash crunch that has hit members, saying, “Many of us find it difficult to pay our bills.”

“Apart from being representatives of our constituents who make series of demands on us, we also have families and relatives who count on us to forge ahead in life,” he stated.

He added that the development has created a big distance between the speaker and many of his colleagues to the extent that the speaker had been switching off his phones in the last two months.

“In the last two months, I can tell you that I’ve not been able to get the speaker on his mobile phones, even with my position in the House. He is apparently avoiding complaints and confrontation,” the embittered member lamented.

A member of the House of Representatives currently earns N960,000 as against the over N1 million earned by their predecessors in the 7th Assembly.

Their quarterly allowance in the 8th House of Representatives was reduced from the N27 million in the 7th Assembly to N18.26? million per lawmaker at the end of every three months.

The allowance covers array of commitments such as furniture, vehicle loan, medical, accommodation, recess, travelling, domestic services, newspapers and periodicals, and constituency offices.