- There should be no reward for truancy
It seems that the 8th National Assembly (NASS) has been jinxed to swim in controversial waters. If it is not scheming for undue advantages, such as asking for immunity to protect its principal officers or to award its members non-contributory pensions, regardless of length of service and access to pensions from their former employments, the National Assembly is busy paying lawmakers’ salaries for contract not performed.
Foremost human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), has revealed that neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives sat for the required number of days in the legislative year that ended on June 9. Falana confirmed that out of the 181 days the constitution mandates legislators to sit, the House sat for only 104 days while the Senate sat for just 96. But members of both houses obtained their full pay for working for roughly 55 per cent of the time required of them to attend to the republic’s legislative duties.
According to Falana, lawmakers paid themselves full salaries despite the constitutional requirement in section 63 that legislators must sit for 181 days and also in disregard of the nation’s labour policy of ‘No work no pay.’ Ordinarily, lawmakers should not have waited to be reminded of this policy. As an institution charged with making laws to ensure public order, national development from economic productivity, and good governance, decision to reject payment for truancy should have been automatic for lawmakers.
Apart from poor work ethic demonstrated by failure of National Assembly members to meet as is constitutionally stipulated, by receiving salaries for work not done, NASS members have also shown gross disregard for accountability. Although the two houses managed to meet for more than one-third of the required time, thus escaping being made to lose their seats in compliance with section 68 of the constitution, the number of days that they missed should have been deducted from their salaries in normal polities. Lawmakers’ option to pay themselves salaries for missed days at work illustrates continuity of impunity that a new government has been chosen to excise from the nation’s political culture.
That failure of lawmakers to meet constitutional requirements has not derived from unavoidable circumstances such as national emergencies or force majeure of any kind reeks of poor sense of responsibility. That failure to meet sitting quota largely derived from incessant recesses arising from members’ preference to shut down the Senate in order to allow senators accompany the Senate President to court underscores abuse of parliamentary prerogative. In other societies where accountability is perceived as inevitable part of parliamentary culture, decision of legislators to shut down the Senate or to stay away from their posts would have been prevented by conscientious legislators in the hallowed chamber.
The Nation associates itself with Falana’s call for immediate refund of unearned salaries by the lawmakers. In case of legislators’ failure to do this voluntarily, we call on the Accountant-General of the Federation to garnish subsequent salaries of those involved in this unethical conduct. To overlook this act of irresponsibility and unethicality is to send wrong signals to citizens in other professions and occupations. More importantly, to ignore this blatant exploitation of taxpayers by lawmakers will be tantamount to condoning corruption.
If the average Nigerian in formal employment accepts to work for 250 days in a year, expecting legislators to work 181 days is not too demanding, given the fact that in countries more advanced than Nigeria, legislators sit for an average of 140 days in a year and receive less than 50% of the salaries and allowances received by our lawmakers. They also perform verifiable Constituent Service while parliaments are not in session.
For example, the 114th U.S. Congress sat for 157 days in 2015 while the Canadian Parliament sat for 130 days and Westminster in the United Kingdom sat for 148. None of these countries pays as much as Nigeria pays its legislators in cash and in kind. Legislators need to be made to act in consonance with the old saying: “To whom much is given, the little that is expected of him should be given.”
