Lawmakers advocate 50% cut in elected officials’ allowances

Posted by admin Legislature, Senate Tuesday, October 29th, 2013

VICE Chairman, Senate Committee on Education, Senator Sola Adeyeye, has urged the Federal Government to urgently cut the allowances of all elected and appointed officials by 50 per cent.

Adeyeye made the call in Abuja, on Monday in Abuja, while speaking to newsmen against the backdrop of the protracted strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

The senator also urged the National Assembly to, henceforth, appropriate 26 per cent of national revenue to the education sector.
He said this had become necessary because “the enormous rot in the education sector cries for urgent and immediate attention.”

Adeyeye said the demands put up by ASUU was motivated by the huge privileges and entitlements currently enjoyed by the Nigerian politicians.

He said the “meagre allocations” to the education sector had turned the Ministry of Education into “a beast of burden,” which had over 46 parastatal agencies to attend to.

Adeyeye also suggested that beginning from 2014, the National Assembly should formulate a law compelling all workers in Nigeria to contribute five per cent of their income as education taxes.

He said there was the need to streamline the large number of parastatals under the Ministry of Education into a manageable few, to reduce the drain on scarce resources.

-Tribunewp_posts