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By Emmanuel Ovuakporie
… point an accusing finger at House leadership
… insist bank rip-off lawmakers of at least N72m monthly
Some members of the House of Representatives are angry with the House leadership over alleged excessive bank charges of N200,000 monthly from their monthly emoluments due to Federal Account Allocation Committee, FAAC’s delay in disbursing funds to first-line charge government bodies.
TNG findings revealed that on a monthly basis FAAC does not disburse allocations until the 9th and 12th of every other month.
This development made the House leadership to strike a deal with an old generation bank to pay all Reps either on the 25th or 28th of every month until , FAAC releases their money by either 10th or 12th of the ensuing month.
It was also gathered that within the stipulated period of delay interest should be charged on individual salary account of the lawmakers.
But this is not going down well with the lawmakers who claimed it was a rip-off as the commission charged on the said salary accounts are outrageous.
One of such lawmakers who hails from the South-South geo-political zone but chose to speak under the condition of anonymity said:
“It’s horrendous that in ten or twelve days we are made to cough out as much as N200k because our leaders failed to reason beyond their nose.
“Before now another old generation bank (name withheld) had handled our salaries in the eighth Assembly and the bank use to give us ten days of grace but this time around in the ninth House they start counting days immediately the newly commissioned old generation bank pays us.
“Some of us are of the opinion that the leadership must have been part of the deal because if you calculate it by 360 members what they deduct is almost N72m monthly.
Another lawmaker who spoke in the same vein declared that”we know a deal must have been struck with our leaders but the question is why was the salary account moved from Sun Trust a new generation bank in this new dispensation that gave us days of grace to an old generation bank that is charging us so much.
In the eighth Assembly we enjoyed a grace period of ten days before such charges are made but the newly commissioned old generation bank starts charging us immediately we are paid.
“We are beginning to smell a rat in this whole new arrangements because we may have to demand an exhaustive explanation on this unusual bank charges, the lawmaker added.
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