As RMAFC Stirs A Hornets’ Nest (1)

_: The recent 114% salary hike proposal by Revenue Mobili­sation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) for po­litical office holders jars on the nerves. It jogs my memory about a relevant article in this column in 2011, which is reproduced hereunder…

In the last couple of years, I have employed every public space to de­nounce the atrocious cost of gover­nance in Nigeria. Under the current condition, I argue, Nigeria can never witness any development even if it conducts transparent and credible elections. (Transparent and credible elections are not possible anyway un­der the current condition). It is high time we chose between administra­tion and development.

Thirty-nine years ago, Walter Rod­ney lamented in his seminal work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa: “It has been noted with irony that the principal ‘industry’ of many under­developed countries is administra­tion… The salary given to the elected politicians is higher than that given to a British Member of Parliament and the number of parliamentarians in the underdeveloped African coun­tries is also relatively high. Many more figures of that sort indicate… the high disproportion of the locally distribut­ed wealth that goes into the pockets of a privileged few.”

If Walter Rodney were alive today, he would have written on How Africa Underdeveloped Africa. And if he were a Nigerian, he would have added to his bestsellers, How Nigeria Underdevel­oped Nigeria.

I am still at a loss on the reason for inserting Section 147 (3) into the 1999 Constitution – “(1) There shall be such offices of Ministers of the Gov­ernment of the Federation as may be established by the President. (3) … provided that in giving effect to the provisions aforesaid the President shall appoint at least one Minister from each State, who shall be an indigene of such State.” Nigeria, by virtue of that piece, must willy-nilly have 36 ministers! But even more confounding is the fact that this section should escape members of the National Assembly from 1999 till date while conducting the endless constitutional amendment exercises that have yet to yield any meaningful results. So, nobody – legislature, exec­utive and judiciary – is really upset by the horrible cost of maintaining this political structure. I cannot recall when any of the three arms of gov­ernment employed any public forum to call for the amendment of the de­spicable clause contained in Section 147 (3) of the constitution. It’s like the
more the number of seats that frames government’s dining table, the better! What manner of country is this?

The United States of America, with a population of about 300 million, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $14.441 trillion and Per Capita Income of $47,440, has fifteen (15) ministries. They are: Department of State; Trea­sury; Defence; Justice; Interior; Agri­culture; Commerce; Labour; Health; Housing; Transport; Energy; Educa­tion; Veterans Affairs; and Homeland Security.

On the other hand, the Federal Re­public of Nigeria, with a population of about 150 million, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $207.116 billion and Per Capita Income of $1,401, currently has about twenty nine (29) ministries. They are: Foreign Affairs; Finance; Defence; Justice; Interior; Agriculture; Commerce and Industry; Labour and Productivity; Health; Lands, Housing and Urban Development; Transport; Power; Education; Aviation; Infor­mation and Communications; Mines and Steel; Niger Delta; Petroleum; En­vironment; Culture and Tourism; Po­lice Affairs; Science and Technology; Special Duties; Youth Development; Women Affairs; National Planning; Sports; Works; and Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Whereas the United States Con­gress consists of 435-member House of Representatives and 100-member Senate, the National Assembly in Ni­geria has 360 members in the House of Representatives and 109 members in the Senate! The Maurice Iwu-led Independent National Electoral Com­mission (INEC), in 2008, advocated 60 additional federal constituencies to the 360-member House of Represen­tatives!

Aso Rock sits on an expansive land with structures that guzzled humon­gous resources. The budgetary alloca­tion to Aso Rock is always in billions of naira every year. And whereas, the Nigerian Senate President and Speak­er of the House of Representatives could respectively boast of at least six official cars, their counterparts in the United States enjoy no such luxury.

The US President earns $400,000 per annum and an American senator earns $174,000 yearly. However, a Nige­rian Senator earns about $1.7 million (N240 million) a year and a member of the House of Representatives earns about $1.45 million (N203.8 million) in salaries and allowances. Even though Section 70 of the 1999 Constitution stip­ulates that “A member of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall receive such salary and other allow­ances as the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) may determine,” what we observe in our own clime is for the na­tional legislators to award themselves allowances in line with their passions and appetites.

In June last year, the media was awash with the damning expose of how the principal officers of the Na­tional Assembly dipped their hands greedily into the public till. Senate President David Mark rakes in a total of N250 million (Two hundred and fif­ty million naira) each quarter; Deputy Senate President collects N150million (One hundred and fifty million naira) every quarter. Each of the eight prin­cipal officers takes home a total of N78 million (Seventy-eight million naira) per quarter and each of the other sena­tors gets N45 million naira per quarter!

The Upper Chamber of the legisla­ture only won by a slim margin in the avarice contest between the two cham­bers. As for the executive, no one can say exactly what the President, Vice President and other officials earn as allowances. If a man who had less than N20,000 (Twenty thousand naira) in his account emerged a billionaire after just eight years in Aso Rock, then we have an idea of how Nigeria’s money is spent at the seat of power.

I do not know who exactly started the culture of setting up presidential commissions in almost all sectors of the economy: Presidential Commis­sion on Sports, Presidential Commis­sion on Sales of Government Houses, Presidential Commission on Power, Presidential Commission on the Jos Crisis, Presidential Commission on Electoral Reform (Uwais Commis­sion), Presidential Commission on Po­lice Reform, Presidential Commission on Constitutional Amendment, etc.

These commissions, arguably, are unknown to law yet they spend gov­ernment money without accounting to anyone. And when the Senate, for in­stance, decided to beam its searchlight on the Presidential Commission on Sales of Government Houses, other­wise known as the Presidential Imple­mentation Committee, it was a tale of scandals. Read a report of the Senate Committee on Housing and Urban De­velopment: “Regrettably, our commit­tee was confronted with fragmentary and incomplete financial records of the activities and operations of the PIC since its inception. The PIC refused to submit useful and veritable records of the number of flats and houses that have been sold or alienated by the PIC; the number of bid winners or sitting tenants who have made full or partial payment; the revenues or incomes from the sales so far made by the PIC and the expenditure or outgoings incurred or disbursements made by the PIC and the budgetary approval of same.”

The Committee also reportedly discovered that about N1.236 billion payable to the Federal Government from the house sales was missing and that the PIC lodged over N80 billion with various banks at an un­authorized interest rate. “Instead of fixing the logdgements at between 5 per cent to 10 per cent interest rate per annum,” alleged the report, “the PIC had under the table deals with the banks such that the lodgements were fixed at 2 per cent interest while PIC of­ficials had the difference paid to them as gratification!”

This piece is not even yet about cor­ruption but the cost of running gov­ernment, excluding corruption.

I once questioned the basis for having the administrative class of the civil service, whose duty it is to advise the ministers, if these politi­cal office holders, in spite of the civil service, have innumerable number of special advisers, special assistants and aides. I wonder the essence of Section 151 of the 1999 Constitution when the President can boast of tens of ministers, and the ministers have hundreds of aides. Section 151 says “The President may appoint any per­son as a Special Adviser to assist him in the performance of his functions. (2) The number of such Advisers and their remuneration and allowances shall be as prescribed by law or by resolution of the National Assembly. (3) Any appointment made pursuant to the provisions of this section shall be at the pleasure of the President and shall cease when the President ceases to hold office.”