Reckless allocation as severance package to governors

•Reforming RMAFC is half the battle to fiscal sanity

•“Blame RMAFC: Not Governor Goje or Governors’’

BY DELE SOBOWALE

“It is true that we have increased the salaries and remuneration packages in line with our mandate.  But we did not increase on the basis of percentage.  The whole increase was done across the board for political officers, lawmakers and judicial officers. The increase has also taken effect because it has been approved accordingly. – Mr Emmanuel Nnamani, RMAFC Commissioner,  in THE NATION, August 18, 2008.

All Nigerians who have for long been baffled by how public servants including Presidents, Vice Presidents, Governors, Ministers and Special Advisers, Senators and Representatives, have been fleecing us need look no further than the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, which is charged with determining the remuneration packages of public officials. One of the first ruinous measures taken by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in 1999, and until now, was to select what in retrospect now appears to be conscienceless people to be in charge of RMAFC. Since any amount recommended by RMAFC becomes legal and binding on the Federal Government and States to pay, everybody can go home with a bundle claiming it was legitimate. On account of the recommendations of RMAFC, since 1999, Nigeria’s public officials have become the highest paid in Africa at least and in most of the world.

If Buhari wants to keep public expenditure under check and save Nigeria from the ruin planned for us by the PDP, he would be best advised to read the following articles written in the past about RMAFC.

WHAT MANNER OF PEOPLE MANAGE RMAFC?

The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, whose Chairman is Alhaji Hamman Tukur, must be the most misunderstood commission in Nigeria today. Its recent announcement, which was meant to correct rumours about entitlements of public officials has only left many people wondering what criteria were adopted by the commission when fixing the entitlements. Let me start by pointing out one which will shock most Nigerians. The pension for many professors who retired before 2000 remains a paltry N1300 per month. At least three have collapsed while on line for verification before collecting this sum that would not even cover the round trip from Lagos to Ibadan.

They are public servants who individually and collectively have contributed more than Special Advisers who the RMAFC is recommending should be paid N16 million per annum. Surely, Nigerians will want the RMAFC to tell us what are the functions of Special Advisers which are so awesome as to earn them this colossal amount?

That was in 2008 before the influence of RMAFC on our annual expenditure became clear to me. Later, a longer article highlighted how this Commission alone determines a great deal of our collective fate by allocating obscene amounts to our elected and appointed public servants. Please read the rest.

Mr. Nnamani went on to inform us, that “what we have done is to review the remuneration packages of these officers in line with the present realities. As a commission, we did some research and met several times before we came up with the increase.   Other indices are the rate of inflation and the need for a living wage to ensure honesty and the dignity of the office holders”.

Let us quickly make a few observations about that statement of defence by Nnamani in order to position the salary increases for political office holders in proper perspective and then to address the issue of how it has played out in Gombe State.

Everybody remembers, because it is too soon to forget, that teachers in the public sector went on strike recently demanding for salary increases “in line with the present realities”,(to use Nnamani’s words), the rate of inflation and the need for a living wage” because that is the sum total of their demands. Governments at all levels pretended they could not afford the increases and kept our kids at home for weeks. Eventually, teachers were persuaded to accept 27.5% increase after taking a lot of abuse from everyone; everyone without brains that is.

Now that the same political office holders and those who could not think deeply, who were asking teachers to be reasonable and to accept less than their demand have seen clearly that elected officials were being dishonest and RMAFC had delayed announcing their own juicy packages perhaps we can now realize the role of the RMAFC and its commissioners – mostly errand boys of politicians – in the distortions taking place in the remuneration of political office holders.

One question needs to be asked for now, “do teachers and political office holders shop in different markets? Are they not subject to the same level of inflation and so called “present realities”? I will next week go through the entire recommendations by RMAFC for various offices in order to demonstrate how utterly bereft of commonsense or patriotism they are.

This week, we  intend to address only one or two.

But, first, let us travel to Gombe where the RMAFC recommendations and implementation has become a public issue.

Governor Danjuma Goje of Gombe State must be wondering what he had done wrong to warrant all the attacks he had received for claiming the pension which the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, has recommended for him and all the other governors of  Nigeria, many of whom have quietly helped themselves to the money without a whimper from those who now want Goje crucified. As for me, Goje has done one thing wrong; he has refused to pay his predecessor in office former Governor Hashidu on the flimsy excuse that the man is under probe. Even, if a probe indicts Hashidu, his pension cannot be confiscated. The penalty is quite different and can only be determined by a court of law. Beyond that, I fail to see what the governor has done that is not legal. It might not be exactly cricket for someone to claim his pension while still serving but the RMAFC had exonerated him even on that score and it has even revealed that other governors have claimed their own money.

The question is: who do we blame for this mess? The plain and honest answer is: the RMAFC. It is the commission that has in its utter folly recommended N200 million for a governor who serves two complete terms as pension; not the governor. How the commissioners came about this colossal figure is what we need to address not the individuals who suddenly find themselves with abundant and legalized loot because when Goje leaves, the next governor will be entitled to the same amount or something larger.

Let us start with some figures published and not yet denied by RMAFC.    They collectively reveal the lack of economic thought that went into the preparation. Motor Vehicle loan is now 400 per cent of basic annual salary payable in six years. But, the elected official is elected for four years and might not be returned to office all being well; he might be removed for a lot of reasons after collecting the loot; and he might die as many have done since 1999. How then are the country’s financial interests protected by offering a loan for tenure in excess of the person’s service period? In case of death, how does the country recover the loan from his family; if he has any? Or do we write it off as an unfortunate situation when simple commonsense would have made it possible for us to avert the problem? If he is removed and cannot afford to pay, do we then inherit an old banger as a nation which will then be sold at a giveaway price to those in the corridors of power?

We   have isolated this particular allowance in order to demonstrate the absurdity of the thought processes that went into the measure announced by Turkur and Nnamani. At the moment, nothing less than ten thousand officials at the three tiers of government will qualify for these largesse. Even if they are all modest, and we know from experience that modesty is not one of the virtues of the Nigerian politician in office, and accept loans of four million each, the country will pay out N40 billion in car loans alone. And these salaries and allowances will be paid regardless of whether the state is Taraba, Ekiti, Ebonyi, Kebbi, or Rivers. That should make a lot of sense – to fools.

Now, let us briefly examine some of the other recommendations based on “the present realities” as claimed by RMAFC. Senators’ basic salaries moved up from just under one million to almost N2.5 million, which means a 150% increase; the same increase was granted to all other elected officials. The last exercise was conducted in 2000; so this is the eighth year.

First, how much inflation has the country experienced in those eight years?

Second, how many other Nigerians in the public and private sectors have had such an increase? Third, why then were teachers, doctors etc in the public service not given the same increase? What are “the present realities” faced by these officials that are different from those the rest of us face?

The RMAFC, of course, perhaps because it cannot think of anything substantial or out of shame, after the fact, has not bothered to tell the people of Nigeria whose money it is spending so recklessly, what they are specifically.

Furniture allowances also skyrocketed by 300% – naturally, “in line with the present realities”. As many Nigerians, except those permanently forgetful, would recollect, in 1999 Senators and members of the House of Representatives at first proposed N5 million and N4 million for furniture allowances for themselves. Public outcry, led by the media, and a then still credible President Obasanjo as an anti-corruption crusader, forced them to reduce it to N3.5 million for Senators and N2.5 million for reps. At least that was what we thought until it was later revealed that they went ahead and took the original amounts when the noise died down and when nobody was watching. That should tell us a lot about the character of people in the National Assembly.

Now if we apply the 300% increase in furniture allowance rule, the questions that will arise are the following:

Will it be 300% of basic salary or 300% of the previous allowances they granted to themselves? Irrespective of whichever one is applied, the nation will be expected to spend another N20 billion to N25 billion on furniture for less than 500 people. That is N40 million per elected official in a country in which 70% of the people live on less than one dollar or N120 a day. That fact about 98 million Nigerians living on less than N120 a day is one of “the present [and abiding] realities” which the commissioners of the RMAFC, who themselves will share in the bonanza, obviously have failed to take into account. They know that their appointments have not depended on the masses but on the ruling group and like most people who know where their bread is buttered, they instinctively know who to please. The majority poor, the critics (including the NLC) and the nation itself can go to hell.   Let us sum up for this week and go to something else, which is pressing. On just two items on the remuneration package of elected officials the RMAFC has committed the nation to paying out almost N75 billion naira, not including the furniture allowances of those at state and local government levels, if we include those, the bill will top N100 billion. Is there any wonder why roads are not tarred, hospitals have remained what Buhari called abattoirs; and teachers went on strike; and there is no water supply even in Portharcourt. The RMAFC has given away all the money for development to elected individuals.

Since 2008, it had been clear  that we either tame RMAFC or it will ruin us. Irrespective of what Buhari does or fails to do elsewhere the people appointed to RMAFC will determine his and our fates.

 

Reckless allocation as severance package to governors