Senate Reacts Over Shehu Sani’s Disclosure Of Lawmakers’ Allowances

The senate has spoken over the public disclosure made by Senator Shehu Sani over the additional allowances earned by Nigerian senators.

Although the senators have often shrouded in secrecy how much they earn as public office holders despite citizens’ curiosity, Senator Sani broke this information out last week.

He revealed that the “monthly running cost” of each senator is N13.5 million to be accounted for and another N700,000 that is unaccounted for.

The Senate’s spokesman, Sabi Abdullahi, has however established that the Kaduna lawmaker has made no new revelation in particular as he claimed the figures were already contain in the national budget which is public.

“Senator Shehu Sani did not disclose anything new as the figures were contained in various line items and expenditure heads of the budget of the national assembly which has been made public”, he noted.

He dismissed reports that senators were unhappy with Sani.

If people had looked critically at the budget, he said, they would have seen that various line items “like traveling, medicals, consultancy and the rest were captured in the budget and they were the funds divided for each Senator’s use”.

“Almost all holders of elective and appointive offices have running costs allocated to their offices and that cannot be said to be part of their salaries,” he added.