The Senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria have agreed to donate half of their March salaries to aid in the fight against the spread of Coronavirus in the country. This was disclosed by Senate Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe on Saturday.

Senator Abaribe said “We’ve already given out 50 per cent of our salaries like ministers, (to government) amidst other individual efforts to our constituents.”
Abaribe said that his colleagues had started donating half of their March salaries to a dedicated account.

Recall that Nigeria’s 43 ministers had last week announced the donation of 50 per cent of their March 2020 salaries to support the Federal Government’s efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in the country as stated by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed in Abuja on Saturday.

It was also revealed that the Senate would cut down its 2020 budget due to the fall of in oil price, which would be the major funding of the budget.

However, the Leader of the Senate, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, said that they were still consulting among themselves on the amount to cut from their own portion of the N128bn National Assembly budget approved for the year 2020.

“The senators are still consulting. The result of our consultations will be made open tomorrow (today) Monday.” He said.

Abdullahi also said that the leadership of the National Assembly had not agreed on when to reconvene and review the 2020 national budget.

Another senator, who spoke on condition of anonymity on Sunday said that the part of the sacrifice that members of the Senate wanted to make was to reduce their own portion of the N128bn National Assembly budget.

He said, “We have agreed to slash the National Assembly budget for this year in line with the current reality. It is certain that the Federal Government will reduce the N10.59tn national budget because of the reduction in the revenue to fund it. So, we are reducing our own too.”

Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari had proposed N125bn to the federal parliament as the lawmakers’ 2020 budget but the lawmakers added N3bn to it.