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.
