President of the Senate, Dr Ahmad Lawan and outgoing Clerk to the National Assembly, Architect Amos Ojo, have been fingered in the gross abuse of appropriation law, having brazenly denied legislative aides numbering over 200 of their salaries and entitlements for over 15 months.
THE CONCLAVE reports that the flagrant abuse has meted untold hardship on the affected legislative aides who have been payrolled since 2021 but were duly paid only four months’ salary arrears on the pretext that the money was not included in the 2021 budget.
The National Legislative Aides Forum, NASSLAF, had in February 2022 threatened to drag the management through anti-graft agencies, including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, (ICPC) for the non-payment of their 2019 salary arrears, minimum wage and other allowances which the management has still blatantly refused to pay.
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan and the outgoing Clerk to the National Assembly, Architect Amos Ojo, THE CONCLAVE reports, have been insinuated into alleged dirty deals that have culminated in the withholding of the salary and allowances of legislative aides.
Some staff members, in the Account Section of the National Assembly, said the leadership of the management Wing of the National Assembly, acted in cahoots with the leadership of the political wing of the National Assembly to divert funds meant for the salaries and allowances of the legislative aides.
They said the funds were diverted to service other subheads that were not circumscribed in or provided for in the Appropriation Act.
THE CONCLAVE reports that a vast majority of the legislative aides have been impoverished and unable to live decently.
One of the staff members said that “for the first time in the history of NASS, a staff was documented, payrolled and received just four months salary arrears while other months were withheld on the basis of lies and fabrications that the budgeted amounts were not covered by the 2021 budget.
“It is very sad to note that National Assembly passed the Minimum Wage Bill, which was assented to in April, 2018 by President Muhammadu Buhari. Many States and private organisations have complied but this Legislative house has failed to honour its own legal framework and creation.
“It is hard to believe that the National Assembly failed in terms of the minimum wage bill compliance despite Federal Government’s commitment to it.
“Even when the said salaries were budgeted for in 2022, the management and principal officers still diverted them, pushing these Legislative Aides into untold hardship.”
While demanding the payment of their 15 months’ salary arrears, the legislative aides said issues of salary payment should be exclusively withdrawn from principal officers’ functions to avert such ugly incidents where staff members and contrators were owed for years by the management of the National Assembly.
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