Legislative aides threaten to shut down NASS over unpaid allowances

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi and Muda Adamu

Legislative Aides to the federal lawmakers at the National Assembly (NASS) have threatened to shutdown the parliament if their allegedly owed allowances totaling N5.8billion are not paid to them before the 25th September resumption date of lawmakers.
In their hundreds, they made the threat yesterday at the lobby of the National Assembly, where they shouted “we are aides and not slaves, pay us our entitlements”!
Addressing journalists on their plights, the Chairman of the aggrieved legislative aides, Comrade Sam Melaye, said the entitlements totaling about N5.8 billion now, must be paid before resumption of the lawmakers this month, failure of which will lead to shutdown of the federal parliament.
The entitlements according to him, are Duty Tour Allowances (DTA) not paid to any one of them within the last three years, which he said is over N2billion now and training allowances, which based on calculation of N1bn per year, is N3bn now.
“By laid down procedures and yearly budgetary provisions of N250m on quarterly basis, each of the legislatives aides is expected to go for training on the template of capacity building the totality of which is N1bn per year but for the past three years, no category of the aides have been sent on any training , let alone , paid the required allowances “, he explained.