A Nigerian politician has revealed that senators receive 13.5m naira [\u00a327,000, $37,500] every month to use on expenses of their own choice.<\/p>\n
Shehu Sani, a senator for the governing All Progressives Congress [APC] party, said there is little accountability about how the money is spent.<\/p>\n
He has called for the payments to be scrapped, saying they are a key reason why people choose to enter politics.<\/p>\n
“I decided to bust it open. It was a moral issue,” Mr Sani told the BBC.<\/p>\n
“The National Assembly is one of the most non-transparent organs of government. It pricked my conscience and I decided to burst the bubble and open the National Assembly to public scrutiny.”<\/p>\n
“If the expenses payment system was ended then parliament would only be attractive to people who contribute ideas,” he said.<\/p>\n
The money is paid on top of a senator’s salary which is more than $2,000 a month. They also receive a yearly constituency budget of $5.5m.<\/p>\n
Nigeria’s minimum wage, meanwhile, is just $50 a month.<\/p>\n
The Senate confirmed Mr Sani’s revelation but described it as “nothing new”.<\/p>\n
“Almost all holders of elective and appointive offices have running costs allocated to their offices that cannot be said to be part of their salaries,” a spokesman said.<\/p>\n
Civil society groups in Nigeria welcomed Mr Sani’s decision to reveal how much senators were receiving each month.<\/p>\n
Usman Abdul, president of the Campaign for Democracy, criticised the payments.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Nigerian politician has revealed that senators receive 13.5m naira [\u00a327,000, $37,500] every month to use on expenses of their own choice. Shehu Sani, a senator for the governing All Progressives Congress [APC] party, said there is little accountability about how the money is spent. He has called for the payments to be scrapped, saying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":409412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[17845,751,17844],"yoast_head":"\n