Cleric seeks reduction of public officials’ emoluments

The Anglican Bishop of Awori Diocese, Rt. Revd. Johnson Akin-Atere, has called for the reduction of the salaries, allowances and other emoluments of civil servants at all levels.

Akin-Atere made the call at the opening of the diocese’s synod tagged, “The Latter Rain” at the Cathedral of St. James, Ota, Ogun State on Sunday.

The bishop said the call had become necessary to enable government at all levels to spend more on capital expenditure.

This, he explained, would impact on the development of the human capacity and economic well-being of the people.

He said, “The RMAC should put a stop to all forms of illegal allowances being allocated by the lawmakers to themselves.

“We condemn the current situation where the priority of government focuses more on the sustenance of the machinery of governance rather than improving the lives of the people.

“No nation can develop with disproportionate ratio of recurrent and overhead expenditure to capital expenditure and Nigeria cannot be an exception.

“In this year’s Budget, the Federal Government has appropriated N2.425tn on recurrent expenditure as against the N1.146tn for capital expenditure. This means that the cost of running government has been increasing at an unstoppable rate.”

While calling on Nigeirans to check the trend of incurring high cost of running government, Akin-Atere also urged government at all levels to fight corruption in both public and private sectors of the nation.

“We call on the EFCC and the ICPC to live up to their responsibilities and commence the prosecution of all former political office holders who have been accused of corruption,” he said.