The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) says about N7 trillion revenues are not being remitted to the Federation account by some federal government agencies.
In an apparent admittance of the fact that Nigeria as a country has money, just like most discerning citizens have been saying, but that the funds have rather been misappropriated or misapplied, the RMAFC Chairman, Mohammed Shehu, who appeared on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday Said the country can even afford to increase salaries of workers at the moment, but bemoaned a situation where some government agencies spend all the monies they generate.
Shehu, who also revealed that some agencies regarded by Nigerians as juicy for the few privileged Nigerians and whose employments are usually influenced by politicians, elite and top civil servants like the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and NIMASA, among others pay higher salaries to their staff than what the president of the country collects presently.
He, therefore urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to go after the culpable agencies, for keeping unto funds generated by them.
Shehu also urged the Federal Government to speedily implement the Steve Oronsaye report submitted over a decade ago in order to merge government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) performing similar functions as a way to cut governance cost.
His words : “The salary of Mr President is not up to N1,300,000 a month…the allowances of the President are factored into that salary. In 2008, that was considered a big money but now, there are people in the private sector and public sector that earn twice, three times, four times,”
Shehu precisely said some staff of government agencies like the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), amongst others, earn emoluments bigger than the President’s.
The NPA is one of the agencies with high revenues. It generated over N172bn in the first half of 2022.
According to him, Nigeria has about 17 different salary categories across several agencies. He, therefore, proposed the regularisation of the salary schemes for the civil service, saying no public official should earn more than the President.“What I was saying that time is that no public servant should earn salaries bigger than Mr President’s but we do have public servants that earn bigger than Mr President: NCC, NIMASA, NPA, Central Bank,” he said.
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The RMAFC chair also said some government officials get as high as N500m as their severance package but the President gets N10m after his tenure.Furthermore, he noted that his commission will soon implement the upward review of the salaries of judicial officers and subsequently review salaries of public officers to reflect current socio-economic realities.
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The RMAFC chair also said some government officials get as high as N500m as their severance package but the President gets N10m after his tenure.Furthermore, he noted that his commission will soon implement the upward review of the salaries of judicial officers and subsequently review salaries of public officers to reflect current socio-economic realities.