As the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission plans to review the emoluments of public office holders, Akwa Ibom State Governor Umo Eno has revealed none of his appointees receive less than N1m monthly.
The governor said the least of his appointees, his personal assistants, receive not less than N1m monthly, and such people cannot be said to be badly remunerated.
The governor may not be reacting to the plans of the RMAFC to review the emoluments of political office holders but to his political aides who trivialize their wages in public, claiming it’s a stipend.
Eno said this during a Town Square Meeting with the people of Ikono and Ini Federal Constituency at Ibiaku Ntok Okpo, where he elevated his PA on Protocol, Blessed Essien, to Special Assistant (SA), Public Works, for making a difference when he donated a water borehole for his community.
The governor slammed his aides, claiming they were poorly paid. “Hear me well, no PA earns less than a million naira. And when they want to talk, they will say it is a stipend. You call it a one million naira stipend. It is not a stipend to me. It is serious money.’
He revealed, “I’ve asked the Secretary of the Government to compile names of all political appointees according to their local government areas; we are going to publish it in the newspaper.”
The governor challenged the people, “Call your PAs, call your SAs, call your SSAs, call your Commissioner, and ask them, ‘What have you done?’”
He stated, “As I arrived here, they gave me one brochure by a PA, who, out of the token (pay) he gets, has gone to his community to do a borehole and has replicated it around the village.”
Eno argued, “One man has done this, but some of them with political appointments are still lying to their people that the governor has done nothing. He has done nothing, and you’re still there. Some say ordinary PA, but a PA to the governor of a state cannot be ordinary.
He then told Essien, “Today you are being promoted from PA to SA (to the Governor) on Public Works.”
