The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) says the total salary of its 249 staff for the 2013 fiscal year is N6.1billion.

PPPRA executive secretary Reginald Stanley disclosed this yesterday to a joint committee of the National Assembly on Petroleum Resources (downstream).

The disclosure raised concerns from the federal lawmakers who were a day earlier shocked when he told them that the 2012 salary of his staff was N5.7 billion.

Defending the 2013 budget before the session headed by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (downstream), Senator Magnus Abe, the PPPRA boss said of the N6.291 billion proposed for the agency for next year, N6.1bn would be spent on personnel cost, N100 million on capital expenditure and N69.17 million on overhead cost.

As members of the committee exclaimed in anger over the disclosure and the chairman of the session, Senator Abe, cut in, asking whether the agency intended to employ more staff for proposing N6.1 billion for staff salary in 2013 as against the N5.7 billion earmarked for same in 2012.

But Stanley said there was no such intention, simply adding that "salary increment is not static."

He asked the committee to direct its question over his agency's staff salary to the Budget Office of the Federation which, according to him, pays the agency based on the revenue flow of the government.