N6m Vehicle for N200,000. Outgoing law makers reap where they did not sow.

Our greedy legislators are in the news again. Report had it (Punch, May 31, p 6) that as parting gifts for those returning and those not returning members of the National Assembly are buying the official vehicles bought for them in 2008 at the cost of N6m each for a paltry sum of N200,000.00. 

Its management wants to sell 469 Peugeot 407 and Toyota Camry 2008 models, which are operational vehicles, purchased for its standing committees to outgoing members. The vehicles which cost N2.814 trillion in 2008 are to be given away at a ridiculous sum of N92,800.000m in 2011. But the management is wiling to sell the cars at between 2.5m to N2.7m each. Even at this price, the cars would still be sold for less than half of their original costs in about three years ago!.

Those of us buying Tokunbo cars of Japanese make pay about the same amount for eight-year-old vehicle, i.e., 2003 models. While the suggested management prices quoted above are still on the low side, the legislators’ offer of N200,000 per vehicle is criminal. Who do they think they are? Locusts or vampires? In spite of the fact that these legislators have milked Nigeria dry for the few unproductive years they spent in the National Assembly, doing nothing in particular but collecting salaries of more than N24m a month, excluding some unknown but spurious allowances, their greedy nature inspired them to want to squander public fund to the very last day of their brief tenures with partying gifts of official vehicles.

President Jonathan had blamed corruption in Nigeria on greed. We say excessive and inconceivable greed of our political office holders, especially our lazy legislators, many of whom do not make contributions to debates, or initiate meaningful legislation for the common good. Rather, they are always at their best when it comes to legislating on matters that concern them alone, and this is usually on matters that concern their individual bottomless pockets.

We can at least heave a sign of relief that majority of them have been rejected and will never find their ways back into the National Assembly or be considered for any appointment in the present or future political dispensation. If we cannot recover the colossal amount of public funds they have squandered on salaries, allowances, useless foreign jamborees and other unspecified and unspecifiable largesse that had gone their ways since their sojourn in the National Assembly, it  can at least be put on record that this crop of Nigerian legislators should go into the Guinness Book of Records as the most wasteful, extravagant, greedy, selfish and insensitive law makers (or law breakers) ever  assembled in a parliament anywhere in the whole wide world. Nigerians who are groaning under the yoke of poverty and want even in the midst of plenty should say never again to these kinds of greedy parliamentarians. The new parliamentarians should be put under strict surveillance and their salaries and enrolments constantly monitored.

With the freedom of information bill now an act, Nigerians have the right of access to information for every kobo paid our parliamentarians monthly and precisely the kind of allowances they get which other workers do not get. Finally, their salaries and allowances should be streamlined along the wages and salaries paid to workers who labour eight hours a day as opposed to parliamentarians who work for only three days in a week. There is no way a parliamentarian should earn more than a professor, and this is even unfair considering that most of the parliamentarians have only secondary school certificate, or  OND, HND or Bachelor of Arts Degree.

For cost saving, the number of parliamentarians should also be pruned down to 75 percent, while their legislative duties should be on part-time basis – which is exactly what it is now at three days a week. Parliamentarians should obtain loans to buy whatever kind of vehicle they think they can afford while they should pay rent on their public apartments. Nowhere in the world are parliamentarians pampered with free amenity as in Nigeria. This is why Nigeria faces challenges, as its financial resources are being drained by parliamentary drones.   Purchasing official cars by outgoing existing and outgoing parliamentarians is not a right but a matter of priviledge which must not be abused. Enough of squadermania and financial recklessness. Enough of charity to the wrong people.

Source : The Nation Newspaper