INDEPENDENT
April 20, 2009
FG Cuts Salaries Of Public Officers By 20%
By David Agba Snr Correspondent, Abuja
Emerging facts have shown that the Federal Government has finally cut the monthly remuneration of all political and public office holders in its executive arm by 20 per cent, effective April 2009.
A document obtained at the weekend indicated that the new directive affects the salaries and allowances of ministers, special advisers, chief executives, chairmen and members of constitutional bodies mentioned in the Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances, etc) Act 2008.
President Umar Musa Yar’Adua had given the directive to facilitate his early resolution on the need to reduce the remuneration of all public officers in view of the global economic meltdown.
In the computation, the President’ s salary would drop from N3,514,705.00 to N2,811,764 while that of the Vice President would come down to N2,425,257.6 from N3,031,572.50.
The salary of Ministers, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, chairmen of statutory bodies, Head of Service, Chief of Staff and Principal Private Secretary to the President is reduced to N1,621,120 from N2,026,400.00, while Federal Commissioner/Member of constitutional bodies would now receive N1,566,064 from N1,957,580.00.
The Special Adviser to the President would each receive N1, 554,300 from N1,942,875.00 while Auditor General, Accountant General and Permanent Secretary including Director General and Executive Secretary would each receive N1,540,692 from 1,925,865.00.
It was further gathered that the amount to be saved from the deductions which is estimated at N2.5 billion per annum would be pooled into a fund to purchase additional transportation for public sector workers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to ease the burden of transportation costs.
This new directive does not affect judicial officers and legislators, as they are different arms.
Presidency source noted that the President recognises the imperatives of compliance with constitutional provisions with regards to remunerations of office holders and has emphasised the need for the two other arms of government to make voluntary decisions regarding sacrifices as suggested.
While the National Assembly may consider such reduction in their remunerations, the judicial officers are reluctant.
The Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Idris Kutigi had in March 2009 insisted that the directive of President Yar’Adua for the downward review of remuneration packages does not extend to judicial officers because the security of tenure of all judicial officers in the federation is guaranteed under Section 84 Sub-section (1)- (4) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to the effect that salaries and allowances of judicial officers cannot be altered to their disadvantage.
The Presidency’s short-cut for immediately implementation of the reduction of salaries and allowances of the political office holders was to hasten the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to determine the salaries.
The commission is constitutionally empowered to determine and fix the salaries of all political and public office holders in Nigeria in the Executive, Judicial and Legislative arms at federal, states and local government councils.
The commission is presently in dilemma of accepting the voluntary deductions by the Presidency for its officers, which constitutionally should passed through various processes.
By the 1999 Constitution the commission would study the reality on ground, consider and consult the stakeholders and make recommendation to the National Assembly, which would then approve it.
