BY EZEOCHA NZEH
As the economic hardship countinues to bite harder in the country, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Benjamin Kalu, has declared that members of the House of Representatives would be willing to accept a pay cut to support their suffering constituents who have been devastated by the current high cost food and
goodsThe Deputy Speaker noted that members of parliament are feeling the pulse of the nation and are willing to make adjustments in their salaries as a necessary sacrifice to help their constituents cope with the current economic realities in the country.The Abia state parliamentarian recalled that the parliament made similar sacrifices in 2020 to help cushion the effects of economic hardship imposed on the people by COVID-19. Rt Hon Kalu made the declaration while responding to critical questions on the adoption of Steven Orosanye report by the federal government to merge some agencies with the aim of cutting the cost of running the government on Channels TV programme, Politics Today, Monday night in Abuja.Kalu said that although the salaries and allowance that the members of the parliament are receiving cannot actually take them home to do their jobs in their various constituencies, they are however always ready to put the nation and their constituents first in their consideration. He added that the leadership of the national assembly is a selfless one and is willing to make necessary sacrifices for the good of the country. He said: “I can assure you like we call it the people’s parliament, the pulse of the nation determines what we do. If we found out that people were suffering and we needed to make sacrifices, we will able to identify with the people. I can assure you as well that we are not hoping that this crisis we are going through will linger for a very long time. When you have sound government policies, it doesn’t end with policy pronouncements. We need to give timeline for the maturation of that policy. “At the moment, the salary of National Assembly members is not as much as people think. Salary is different from allowance which is meant to do the jobs the constituents have sent us to do. Nobody is allowed to touch allowances, it is your salary that belongs to you. Allowances have what they are meant for. If you use it in wrongly, you will be sanctioned for that.”
