President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, state governors, and other political appointees preparing to leave office may cost the nation N64.72 billion in final salary, according to an analysis by The PUNCH.
The sum includes compensation for ministers, commissioners, members of the National Assembly, and special advisers.
Special assistants and state assembly members are excluded, though.
The figures were determined by analysis of the allocations made by the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission for one month’s worth of salaries, allowances, and severance pay (300 percent of basic salary).
In addition to the base pay for the final month of employment, the figure also accounts for various allowances, including hardship allowances (50 percent of the base pay), consistency allowances (250 percent of the base pay), motor vehicle fueling allowances (75 percent of the base pay), and entertainment allowances (45 percent of the base pay), among others.
According to RMAFC’s guidelines, Buhari would receive N1.71 million, which will cover his basic salary, a few allowances, and N10.54 million in severance pay.
Osinbajo is anticipated to receive N1.01m in addition to N9.09m in severance compensation.
The eight special advisers in the Presidency are expected to get N590,957, which includes basic salary and a few allowances, and N5.83m severance pay each.
In total, N51.37m will be spent on the special advisers under the Presidency.
There are 44 ministers under Buhari, consisting of 27 federal ministers and 17 ministers of state.
While each minister is entitled to N6.73m (which includes basic salary, some allowances and severance pay), each minister of state is entitled to N6.5m.
In total, they would get N292.21m, with ministers getting N181.71m and ministers of states receiving N110.5m.
Each special adviser under the minister is entitled to a final pay of N6.42m. With each minister having one special adviser, the total sum of N282.48m will be spent.
Each outgoing governor is entitled to a final pay of N7.32m while the deputy governor gets N6.96m. In total, state governors will get N131.76m while their deputies would be paid N125.28m.
With each commissioner entitled to N4.42m, a total of 356 state commissioners will get N1.57bn.
Special advisers at the state level are by law entitled to N4.13m each. The 18 states have about 14,529 special advisers in total, which would cost the public treasury over N60bn.
