Idris Ahmed
3 July 2009
Abuja — President and his vice will no longer enjoy the severance gratuity of 300 percent of their annual basic salary after the completion of their tenure, the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) has recommended.
The gratuity was cancelled because the President and the Vice are entitled to pension for life by virtue of Section 84(5) of the 1999 Constitution, the Commission said.
This was contained in a reviewed remuneration package for political, public and judicial office holders presented by the Chairman of RMAFC, Hamman Tukur presented to President Umar Musa Yar'adua yesterday in Abuja.
Yar'adua proposed to RMAFC in February to review the salaries and allowances of certain political, public and judicial office holders in a response to the global financial meltdown.
The new package slashed the President and Vice President's hardship allowance from 50 percent of their basic salary to 30 percent. Implementation of all recommendations takes effect from July 1.
In regards to severance gratuity, a President would no longer get N10, 544, 115 at the end of his tenure, while a Vice President would loss N9, 094,718.
The current annual basic salary of both the President and his vice is N3, 514, 705.00 and N3, 031,572.50, respectively.
For the hardship allowance, the President would loss annually N702, 942 after the allowance is cut from N1, 757, 353 to N1, 054, 412. The Vice President would loss N605, 709 annually.
The new package reduced the Constituency allowance of Senators form 250 percent to 150 percent, while that of the members of the House of Representatives was reduced from 150 percent to 75 percent.
The number of vehicles to be provided to the Senate President was reduced from 8 to 6 while that of the Speaker of the House was reduced from seven to six. In the case of accommodation, RMAFC categorized the country into Zones and reduction of allowance is based on the peculiar cost of rent within each location.
Tukur told the President that the Commission, in order to be fair, equitable and just to all the beneficiaries of the remuneration package, decided "not to review basic salaries" and confine itself only to the review of allowances and other benefits of Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders including those in the legislatures.
He said: "At this juncture, let me state clearly Sir that, during this review exercise, each allowance for each Political, Public and Judicial Office Holder was considered purely on its own merit before concluding on whether or not to review it downward, retain it, or cancel such allowance altogether.
"The implication of this approach is that the Commission avoided the temptation of arbitrarily adopting an across the board percentage reduction in the review exercise."
He said the Commission was concerned with the high level of expenditure on the emolument of Political and Public Office Holders at the local government level which is adversely affecting the expenditure on service delivery and good governance.
"Consequently, some allowances have been drastically reduced while others have been cancelled outrightly at the Local Government level", he said.
Accommodation and furniture allowances at the local government were reduced by over 50%, while allowances such as Entertainment, Personal Assistant, Severance Gratuity and others were altogether cancelled.
The Commission said that these reviewed packages automatically supersede all the previous Reports of the Commission and said that apart from the salaries, allowances and fringe benefits contained in the packages, "no other salaries, allowances or fringe benefits are to be paid to any Political, Public or Judicial Office Holder."
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