Former President Goodluck Jonathan
Former President Goodluck Jonathan;
his deputy, Namadi Sambo; immediate past ministers and presidential
aides as well as non-returning federal lawmakers will wait till next
year before collecting their severance allowances, investigation by The PUNCH has shown.
Their severance allowances as contained
in the remuneration package put together by the Revenue Mobilisation,
Allocation and Fiscal Commission is valued at about N3.24bn.
Sources at the Ministry of Finance in
Abuja confided in our correspondent on Thursday that the allowances of
the political office holder, who left office last Friday, were not
captured in this year’s budget.
The 2015
budget, which was passed by the National Assembly and signed by
Jonathan on April 28, makes a provision of N2.3bn for “entitlements of
former Presidents/Heads of state and Vice Presidents/Chiefs of General
Staff.”
Explaining
the reason why the severance pay was not captured in this year’s
budget, the official said as of last year when the 2015 budget was being
prepared, the outcome of the April 2015 elections could not be
ascertained.
He said
since the outcome of the elections could not be predicted, there was no
way the Budget Office could have determined the number of political
office holders that would not be re-elected.
The
official added, “You will recall that the 2015 budget was prepared
sometime last year and during the budget preparation, the elections had
not been held.
“So it
would be wrong to include the severance package of political office
holders in the budget because as of the time the budget was prepared,
these people were still holding political offices.
“Secondly,
including their severance package before the elections were conducted
would mean that we were pre-empting the outcome of a political process.
“So what
we do is to wait for the outcome of elections and on the strength of
this, we can know the number of people that have left office and those
re-elected.
“As for those political office holders
that are leaving office this year, their severance package would be
included in the 2016 budget, which will be prepared later in the year.”
Under the severance package put together by RMAFC, Jonathan is entitled to 300 per cent of his annual basic salary.
The President’s annual basic salary is
put at N3, 514,705 and therefore his severance allowance will be N10,
544,115 after May 29.
The severance allowance is without prejudice to his other constitutional entitlements as a former head of government.
Similarly, Vice-President Sambo, who
left office the same day as Jonathan, is entitled to 300 per cent of
his annual basic salary put at N3, 031,572.50. This means that his
severance allowance after May 29 is N9, 094,717.50.
For having held the office of vice-president, Sambo also has some constitutional entitlements and perks.
About 76 senators are not returning to
the National Assembly either because they did not stand for election or
because they lost their bids to return. They are however entitled to
N462,019,200 at the expiration of their tenure on June 5.
Like Jonathan and Sambo, they are
entitled to 300 per cent of their annual basic salaries as severance
allowances. This amounts to N6, 079,200 per senator.
In the House of Representatives, about
290 members are not returning to the 8th National Assembly to be
proclaimed into existence by Buhari on June 5.
Each of the members is entitled to
N5,955,637.50 as severance allowance. This means that the 290 members
will be paid N1,727,134,875.
The former ministers, on the other hand,
will collect a total of N253,967,212.5. There were 42 ministers in
Jonathan’s cabinet. Thirty one of them were senior ministers and 11
ministers of state.
Each of the former senior ministers is
entitled to N6,079,200 as severance allowance while each of the
ministers of state will receive N5,872,740.
This means that collectively, the senior
ministers will get N188,455,200 while collectively, the erstwhile
ministers of state will receive N65,512,012.5 .
The aides to the former President,
comprising special advisers, senior special assistants and special
assistants, will get N775,207,125.
They were 23 of them that worked with
the president as special advisers. Apart from this number, however,
there were several others estimated at 110, who worked with the
vice-president, the wife of the former President and special advisers
that were designated either as senior special assistants or special
assistants to the President.
This means that there were about 133
aides to the president and each of them is entitled to 300 per cent of
their annual basic salary which amounts to N5,828,625 each.
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