‘N12 Million Awoof Not Enough, FGN Should Also Pay For Our Drivers, Gatemen and Housegirls’ National Confab Delegates Demand.

The Federal Government has rebuffed request by some of the delegates to the 

ongoing 

national conference that their personal aides be paid by the government.

Each of the delegates are to receive N12m for the three months exercise.

The allowance include money for accommodation, transportation, part of feeding (the 

delegates are to have free lunch at the venue of the conference.

However, the delegates are expected to have aides such as drivers and personal assistants 

in order to ease their works and movements.

However, investigations by one of our correspondents showed that some of the delegates 

met in Abuja on Monday shortly after the inauguration of the conference by President 

Goodluck Jonathan where the welfare of their aides was discussed.

The delegates, it was gathered, wanted the Federal Government to take over the allowances 

of their aides.

While some of them at the informal meeting said that the issue be raised during plenary, 

thinking that the N12m was meant for them and not their aides, a few of them were said to 

have disagreed.

One of the delegates, who was at the meeting, confided in our correspondent that the 

organisers of the conference ought to inform them about the number of aides they were to 

employ and who would be responsible for their salaries.

Another delegate was said to have given an example of the members of the National 

Assembly whose aides he said, were being paid by the Federal Government.

“This does not affect the salaries and allowances of these lawmakers,” one of the delegates 

argued.

At the inaugural sitting on Tuesday, a delegate from Jigawa State, Senator Mohammed 

Jibrin, asked the leadership of the conference to tell the delegates the number of aides each 

of them were expected to have.

“We need to know the number of aides we are to employ,” he demanded.

Another delegate, a lady also asked the management of the conference who was going to be 

responsible for the welfare of their aides.

In her response, the Conference Secretary, Mrs. Valeria Azinge, said there was no provision 

for personal aides of the delegates.

She informed the delegates that the Federal Government had monetised their 

accommodation, transportation and sitting allowances.

“You will all receive your pay slips in two weeks intervals and we won’t disclose what is 

paid to you in the open. Each and every one of you is however free to divulge it, but that 

will not come from us,” Azinge said.