THE uproar over an alleged N2.7
billion severance pay for outgoing chiefs of the electricity regulator
is a rude-reminder of a perverse public service system that enriches a
few at the expense of the overwhelming majority. That a handful of
short-tenured officials are able to approve elephantine sums of money
for themselves sits oddly with a contemporaneous presidential
declaration that the country is broke. President Muhammadu Buhari’s
change promise must start with ending the rent-seeking culture of
legitimised plunder of public funds.
According to the initial report,
the seven-member board of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory
Commission approved a severance package that will see each of its six
commissioners receiving N380 million and its Chairman, Sam Amadi, N400
million. Though Amadi has taken out two-page advertorials in the press
to declare emphatically that “the commission has not approved N400
million for the chairman and N380 million for the commissioners…,” he
however justifies their being generously rewarded on the grounds of law
and precedent. It is significant that the House of Representatives has
passed a resolution calling for a halt to the planned pay-off. The two
chambers of the National Assembly should realise that others are simply
taking a leaf out of their book of opulence and legalised plunder with
nary a care for the rest of the populace, 61 per cent of who live in
poverty.
Anayo Nnebe, a member from
Anambra State, rightly observed that it was a common practice for
officials of federal agencies to allocate to themselves huge public
funds “that cannot be defended.” Amadi’s elaborate prose fits into this
pattern. His justification for the generous pay-offs for a five-year
assignment on the grounds that the previous board prepared the template
is self-serving. The self-enriching resolutions of a previous board are
not binding statutes on a new team for whom selfless public service is
paramount.
That the board cherry-picks
actions based on what is convenient to its members is revealed in his
clever-by-half argument that the “commissioners reasoned, rightly, that
it is not bound by the Act to accept recommendations of the National
Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, but rather consider the views of
the NSIWC before approving the salaries and allowances of the
commissioners.” NERC was “not bound” by the recommendations of a
constitutional body, but felt bound by those of previous directors who
were sacked by the government on a similar allegation of
self-enrichment. That the matter was resolved by an out-of-court deal
and members paid their salaries does not obviate the inappropriateness
of using public office for self-aggrandisement. The previous government
was notorious for unorthodox resolutions of corruption cases that
allowed accused persons off the hook but left the public poorer and
bewildered.
But the most egregious of the
payoffs is the two-year upfront payment of salaries and allowances for
each board member. Amadi premised this hefty severance pay cheque on the
Electric Power Sector Reform Act that bars a board member from taking
up appointment in the power sector for the first two years after leaving
NERC, hence the need to “compensate” them. This is unacceptable. As
Mohammed Gololo, a House of Representatives member from Bauchi State,
observed, the lives of the commissioners are not inexorably tied to the
sector as they are free to work anywhere else. It is only in Nigeria
that a statute put in place to avoid a clash of interests will be used
as an excuse for jumbo pay-out by grasping officials. Most of the
current seven commissioners were not engaged full time in the power
sector prior to their appointments. Amadi was known as a lawyer in the
civil society circuit; not as a career power sector executive.
But this practice is widespread
in our public service and it is Buhari’s sacred duty to stop it. It is
particularly galling that agencies like NERC that fail to deliver
quality service end up making their executives rich. The clean-up should
start at the top: ministers and other public officials should not live
like medieval potentates, but be mindful of the 40 per cent reduction in
oil revenues accruing to the Federation Account. It is ridiculous that a
country confessing tight finances spends far more than what the world’s
richest countries spend on officials. We expect Buhari to quickly sell
off at least eight of the 10 aircraft of the Presidential Air Fleet that
his selfish, insensitive predecessors amassed. The ministries,
departments and agencies should be stopped from approving generous perks
for themselves.
Operating by example, ministers
should impress it on board appointees and executives that public office
is a call to national service, not a sure route to wealth for life. NERC
commissioners are not the only officials literally going home with
bagfuls of cash after only five years of service. For many, a mere two
years in public office can guarantee a lifetime of opulence thereafter.
Pay and severance packages should henceforth reflect our fiscal
realities.
The government has an
opportunity to reform public accounts and revoke all statutes that offer
legal loopholes for officials to vote over-generous pay for themselves.
With per capita income of just $3,000 and minimum wage of N18,000, it
is, as Nnebe thundered, “ungodly, wicked and unbelievable” for a few
officials to be taking away so much while the country suffers severe
infrastructure deficit. Of the N4.49 trillion 2015 budget, only about
N556.99 billion was earmarked for capital projects and most has not been
released. The rest is for recurrent in addition to N1.02 trillion
deficit that mostly goes to servicing the pampered bureaucracy.
The National Assembly should
also give up their multibillion naira perks and together with the
Executive usher in a new era of responsible, selfless service.
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