Recession: Cash Crunch Hits Reps As They Shun Visits To Constituencies

Punch reported that more than one week after commencing their annual vacation, many members of the House of Representatives have been unable to travel out of Abuja.

Investigations revealed that the delay in the payment of their salaries and other allowances was responsible for the cash crunch facing the legislators.

Findings by our correspondent indicated that after waiting for bank alerts in the last one week, many members had besieged their banks to find out what the problem was but their accounts officers reportedly told them that no money had been paid into their accounts.

It was gathered that the July salary of the legislators had yet to be paid as of Friday. A member of the House of Representatives receives between N690,000 and N1.1m monthly. They also receive a quarterly allocation of between N27.9m and N33m.

But a drop in flow of funds to the legislature in recent months forced the bureaucracy to reduce the lawmakers’ monthly package.

The disappointed lawmakers was said to have blamed the Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation for the non-release of funds budgeted for the National Assembly.