The Chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Mohammed Bello, has said that they are not opposed to the increase of workers’ salaries in the country but that the commission is currently limited to determining what political office holders earn.
Bello, during a visit to the headquarters of Media Trust Group, publishers of Daily Trust franchise and owners of Trust TV, on Thursday in Abuja, stated that the commission is trying to review the act that the establishes it to ensure revenue distribution is in accordance with the current reality, thereby bringing to an end the agitation in some sections of the country.
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“I am not averse to holistically reviewing the salary of everybody in Nigeria. If we have to block leakages, if we have to cut down on government expenses so that people can have a living wage in Nigeria and when they retire they can have a living retirement wage, I am not averse to that.
“Our function has nothing to do with the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) or the salary of other workers; ours is what the constitution says about us. There are lapses: why, because there was a certain gap at some point so salary and wages commission came in and they also determine certain aspects of salaries of some other category of political office holders.”
National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) is responsible for reviewing emoluments of various agency workers other than the political office holders such as lawmakers, presidents among others limited to RMAFC.
The Chairman said that lack of adequate revenue has not allowed his agency to function well to monitor revenue accrual from agencies the country depends on for income.
He said because of this, the agency could not work independently as required by the constitution. He added that it also hampers checks of revenue leakages from government agencies because its monitoring capability has been affected.
Bello said the use of technology could be the only way out for Nigeria to know the actual revenue generated by MDAs, saying there is the need to streamline what each agency made on behalf of the federal government.
He added that the country would have a shortfall of revenue in the coming years since the status of the NNPC has changed, but expressed lack of clarity on what would happen to liabilities of the company and other oil wells that were not utilized before.
While commenting on the monthly salary of lawmakers, he said they go home with less than a million naira after tax.
He said what they get an accumulation of allowances meant to run their offices as well as pay their staff, stating, “In other societies, there is a structure that pays all this and the money does not go to the lawmaker. But in Nigeria, this structure is not available so it is monetized and they decide to give those that are meant for.”
