Ekiti Assembly members reject pay cut, want salary increase

The Ekiti State House of Assembly has rejected the proposal by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission for the slash of salaries and emoluments of members of the legislature, both at federal and state levels.

The assembly took the position on Monday while assessing its activities in the last 100 days.

Speaker of the House, Kola Oluwawole, said he had expected RMAFC to review salaries and allowances of members upward to encourage them to do more work rather than slashing it.

“I expect the RMAFC to even jack up the salaries so that we will be able to do more projects in our constituencies,” the Speaker sad. “We want the Federal Government to increase our allowances and benefits , because we are the closest to the masses, particularly the poor ones , rather than thinking of pay cut.”

The Chairman of the Commission, Elias Mbam, had indicated recently that lawmakers and other political office holders would get a slash of their current pay.

He said the review became necessary because many government agencies, states and local governments had been struggling to pay salaries as a result of the sharp drop in oil price.

According to Mr. Mbam, the downward review of the remuneration did not start with the present administration as the commission had started the review process since last year.