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
MEDIANIGERIA 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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