Managing the size of the National Assembly

All the institutions and processes of democracy and democratic administration all over the world cost a great deal of money to establish, to maintain, and to operate. However, there is no gainsaying that the cost of governance in Nigeria is enormous in relation to the country’s current economic realities. With the desire to reduce governance cost, there have been several attempts by previous governments to reduce size of government through ‘harmonization of agencies’, ‘rehabilitation and restructuring of federal government parastatals’, ‘down-sizing of Ministries, Departments and Agencies’.

In view of recent demand by Nigerians for a more effective and manageable legislative structure, there is a crucial need to review the modalities that can help cut down the cost of governance beginning with the National Assembly.

According to a policy paper by Nextier, an advisory firm, the cost of maintaining the National Assembly has been on the upward trajectory since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999 despite the continued pauperization of Nigerians.

Records have shown that the cost of running the National Assembly grew by over 205 percent from the fourth Assembly to the sixth Assembly; a growth which outpaced economic indicators like the GDP growth, inflation and growth in per capita income. The seventh Assembly for 2012 has a budget proposal of about N150 billion or 3.16 percent of the total budget, which is high when compared to allocations to other critical drivers of the economy such as power and agriculture that got 1.55 percent and 1.66 percent respectively.

It has been revealed that the average annual remuneration of a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives is about N240 million ($1.6 million) and about N204 million ($1.36 million) respectively where 61.2 percent of Nigerians live on less than $1 per day. The ratio of the annual salary of the average Nigerian legislature of $161,290 to the national annual minimum wage of $1,475 is 109. The ratio for other countries like Ghana, United States of America, Singapore, United Kingdom and France are 23, 12, 8, 6 and 5 respectively.

Thus, compared to other countries, Nigerian legislators are one of the highest paid, yet this huge investment is incommensurate, pales woefully, to results based on calculated number of bills passed into law. For example, the sixth National Assembly passed 91 bills over its four year tenure (2007 – 2011) while the US Congress passed 326 bills over two-year tenure (2011-2012). And the two countries spend about the same amount on their legislatures. When their figures are compared in relation to their GDP per capita, Nigeria spends 1,309 times on its legislators compared to 34 times for the United States. In fact, the expenditure on Nigeria’s National Assembly accounts for over 25 percent of the overhead costs of the Federal Government.

Something must be done to reduce the huge overhead costs from maintaining our National Assembly. Political analysts have even suggested a unicameral legislature as in Ghana or South Korea. However, there are strong views that even if we retain the bicameral legislature because of its obvious check and balance benefits there should be other ways of cost reduction like implementing a part-time legislature and reducing the minimum number of sitting days to 121 days instead of 181 days. Also, reducing the number of seats in the legislature to 325 with House of Representatives having 252, instead of current 360 seats and Senate 73 seats, instead of the current 109, two seats per state and one for the Federal Capital Territory, and placing Legislators on Civil service salary grade levels, are worthy options that can be explored.