According to information obtainable from the Punch newspaper this morning, President Goodluck Johnathan, Vice President Namadi Sambo and many others non-returning federal lawmakers, ministers and their aides are to receive a whooping N3.24bn in severance allowances.
The severance allowances are contained in the remuneration package put together by the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
The allowance consist 300 percent of the basic salaries of all beneficiaries. Consequently, the President, after the May 29th hand over date will receive and allowance amounting to N10,544,115. This amount is said to be outside his constitutional entitlements as a former head of government. Vice President Namadi will be pocketing N9,094,717.50 as severance allowance. Similarly, the total allowance that will accrue to the 76 non-returning Senators was put at N462,019,200, at N6,079,200 per head. In same vain, 290 non-returning House of Representatives members will receive N5,955,637.50 as severance allowance amounting to a total of N1,727,134,875.
The same gesture of 300 percent basic salary severance allowance will be extended to all Ministers, Special advisers to the president, vice president and first lady. Making up a total severance allowance budget of N3.24bn.
Read more: http://www.punchng.com/news/jonathan-sambo-others-to-get-n3-24bn-severance-pay/
This outrageous, senseless, and unwholesome expenditure by the RMAFC is coming on the heels of calls on Nigerians by several government officials including the President himself, to make adjustments, sacrifices and preparation in view of imminent austerity measures to be witnessed in the economic handling following the crash in government revenue occasioned by the plunge in the price of crude oil.
But contrary to their own callings and admonition of the people, while the masses are expected to be on the receiving end of the backlash of austerity measures, while they gear up to make "sacrifices" which is expected to include a cut in remuneration and emoluments of the common man and a decline in government expenditure on infrastructure, capital projects, subsidies and other government incentives beneficial to the common man, these political juggernaut continue to feed fat in the face of economic famine and bankruptcy. Austerity is the rain that drops only on the roofs of the masses.
What is the sense in giving severance allowances to people who has been spoon fed from state resource for years? People who have amassed enough wealth surplus for themselves and obtrusive enough to cater for their children's children to the 5th generation? Nigeria's political offices are the most lucrative ventures when placed vis-a-vis other countries of the world. The funding of government, that is, the payment of government officials in Nigeria is the costliest compared to even America where things are done more sanely and government officials carry out their constitution mandate with more dedication, patriotism and sense of responsibility.
But in Nigeria, the case is different. People who sleep in the Senate and house of Representatives, barely saying a word throughout the entire session winds up going home with "Ghana must Go" full of money as sitting allowance. When a police inspector who stands in the sun all day, risking his life and the well being of his family barely get enough to get through a month. And after 35 years of service to his father land, he winds up collapsing on long queues waiting for a meager pension that's not enough to cater for his basic need.
This is happening in the same country where governors, State and National assembly, and House of Representatives heads who are de jure not civil servants has mischievously, selfishly and senselessly promulgated laws that will see to it that they continue to get pensions almost tantamount to a sitting office holder of their pertinent offices after they might have vacated office. So a state governor who after 8 years of looting and siphoning state resources, vacates his seat and becomes a senator, and still collects pensions on the same scale as the incumbent governor's salary, pensions that are package with other bogus entitlements, while still receiving the mouth watering emoluments of being a senator; in the same country where a teacher, a doctor, a police man, a civil servant has to make "sacrifices" and bear the brunt of austerity measures.
Austerity measures in Nigeria are deliberate and precise strategies, measures and legislative structures put in place by a once profligate government, in order to ensures that the elites and political class continue to maintain their economic, social and financial status quo at the detriment of the economy and the masses. This brings to mind the Biblical analogy where it is said that, to him that does not have, even that which he had will be taken away from him and given to another (who already has plenty) . Like the dream of Pharaoh in which the fat, healthy cows fed on the slim, malnutrited and flaccid cows. That is the Nigerian situation. The rich get richer, the power get screwed (according to M.I).
It is a pity.
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