Bill Proposing High Level Pay Raises Passed by the Senate

A chart showing the exchange rate between the Naira and the British Pound

With the conclusion of work and passage of the Bill to amend the Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances) Act, by the Senate yesterday, a legal backing has now been given to the new pay packages for the President, his deputy and other senior officials of the Bench.

The President's salary, according to the Bill, has now been raised from N1,405,882.00 to N3,514,705.00 while that of the Vice President goes up to N3,031, 572.00 from N1,212,629.00. The Chief Justice will earn N3,363,972.00 while a Justice of the Supreme Court and the President of the Court of Appeal will take N2,477,110.00. A Justice of the Court of Appeal will get N1, 995, 430.00.

The decision to increase the salaries was taken after an exhaustive deliberation on a report presented to that effect by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on National Planning, Economic Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Senator Zainab Kure.According to her, the upward review was in harmony with submissions made by RMAFC. She pointed out that the issue of salaries was dynamic and as such it was supposed to be reviewed from time to time.

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The raise that was probably well merited, judging by the chart shown above. The chart show that more and more Naira are needed to make one pound, thus denoting inflation. To retain the same standar of living, salaries must be increases on a regular basis. This certainly does not explain all of the larger salary, though. The remaining amount of the more than doubled salaries may or may not be justified, and the ambiguous explanation does not shed any light on the matter.
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