A jumbo severance package for former President Goodluck Jonathan; his deputy, Namadi Sambo; immediate past ministers and presidential aides as well as non-returning federal lawmakers will not be paid until 2016.
Investigations byThe PUNCH show that 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.
“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.
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