Jos Residents Differ Over Buhari, Osinbajo’s Salary Cut

Former Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Plateau State Branch, Mr. Lawrence Anyia, said the 50 percent pay cut by the President Buhari and his deputy, Prof Yemi Osinbajo as of no utilitarian value, adding that it is very cosmetic.
 
Speaking with The Guardian on the issue, Anyia said the move is a welcome development.

“But the ancillary issue is, of what utilitarian value is this pay cut to the governance of this country? How will it affect the economy of the country? How will it affect the administrative thrust of governance of this country?

“Now, you realise that the salaries receivable by government officials are salaries that have been appropriated. There is a law regulating the salaries they receive. If therefore, Mr. President decides to cut his salary and Mr. Vice President also decides to cut his salary, they are personal issues. They are personal matters.

“The reason being that in the first place, these salaries when they earn them are not money they actually use. There are so many allowances around them that do not even make them touch their salaries. Now, are they also saying that they have cut these allowances or they are foregoing the allowances?

“What about security votes that pertain to their offices? What about the ecological funds that the governors, for instance receive?  Are they going to forego them? Are they going to cut them? So, when you look at all the collateral circumstances surrounding the pay cut, you will discover that is just a way of saying, we have done this, therefore, other government functionaries should also do the same. But I do not think, strictly speaking, that it will have any effect whatsoever on our governance. It won’t have any effect whatsoever on the economy,” Anyia said.
   
He further argued that what he thinks President Muhammadu Buhari should do rather than arranging pay cut is to ensure that the Nigerian economy is well situated and to ensure there is no inflation.

He said that information reaching him points to the fact that inflation is skyrocketing within the past months of his assuming office.

He said: “Buhari should ensure that inflation drops. He should ensure that the stock market does not plummet as it plummeted the previous days. It is a staggering figure. He should not use pay cut to pull wool over our eyes. Pay cut is never a solution to the maladministration that has dotted the country since it commenced its democratic journey in 1999.

On how Nigerians will ensure that the salary pay cut will be carried out to the letter, he said that it becomes the question of integrity.

“If Mr. President has said I have decided to reduce my salary to 50 percent and my Vice President has also agreed to reduce his salary to 50 percent, it becomes a matter of integrity for Nigerians to know that what Mr. President earns has actually been reduced. So, it is not enough to say I have reduced it. He should also go ahead to show that in all honesty it has been reduced.”
 
According to Anyia, if actually the pay cut comes into existence, the balance goes back to public treasury, adding that the Salaries and Wages Commission is there, the Accountant – General of the Federal is there as well as the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission. “All these are agencies that will ensure that what Mr. President has cut out of his salary goes back to public treasury.”
  
The whole thing, according to him smacks of political gimmick created by the duo of the President and his Vice and to ensure that other government functionaries also do the same by persuading them to also agree to pay cut.
   
He said, “The legislators’ salaries are also appropriated. If there was to be reduction of the legislators’ salaries, they must go back and do another appropriation to ensure that their salaries are cut. Do you think that the legislators will ever do that? So, it is nothing more than political grandstanding. He should ensure that the economy functions. He should ensure that there is food on our table. He should ensure that there is employment for the teeming youths that keep coming out of the university on a yearly basis. He should ensure that there is water. He should ensure that water is flowing through our pipes. He should ensure that there is constant supply of light for both individual users and industrial use.
  
According to a public affairs analyst, Mr. John Obi, the 50 percent pay cut in the salaries of the President and his Vice should be seen as very symbolic which goes to tell Nigerians that the present administration actually means to tackle the issue of corruption head on.

“We know that half of their salaries is insignificant to revive the system of corruption that has bedevilled the country since 1999 when Nigeria started its democratic journey. What this shows is that the cost of governance is very alarming and that if the other arms of government, the legislature, can follow suit where the largest chunk of Nigerian resources go to, the better.”
 
For Obi, “the bicameral legislature that Nigeria is practising at the moment is to expensive. Why can’t we adopt unicameral system where we only have one chamber? Maintaining two chambers, Senate and House of Representatives, is wasteful and is siphoning the country’s resources. What is it that one chamber cannot do? This is just a duplication of functions.

Another commentator, Rotzin Dimka, argued that the President and his Vice’s actions should be seen as a personal commitment and sacrifice which every rich Nigerian should make towards realising the goal of the present administration to rid the country of corruption.