2021 Budget: FG To Spend ₦7.8bn On Former Presidents, Ex-VPs

The Federal Government will spend around ₦7.8 billion on entitlements, severance allowances, and other perquisites of the nation’s former leaders.

This comes as Nigeria prepares for a revenue shortage in 2021, with plans to borrow about a quarter of the year’s budget expenditure.

This year, of the total ₦7.8 billion budgeted as gratuity for retired government officials, former heads of state, presidents and their respective deputies will earn a combined entitlement of ₦2.3 billion.

Naija News understands that this is in accordance with the remuneration for the former presidents‘ act.

As an upkeep allowance, the act mandates the monthly payment of ₦350,000 to former presidents and ₦250,000 to former vice-presidents and chiefs of general staff, and this is subject to a review whenever there is an increase in the salary of the serving president.

Also, the families of all deceased former presidents are entitled to an annual allowance of ₦1 million payable as ₦250,000 per quarter, while the families of deceased former deputies get ₦750,000 per annum payable in the sum of ₦187,500 per quarter.

However, if the spouse of the deceased leader remarries, they stop getting the allowance.

In the same vein, the nation’s retired heads of service and permanent secretaries will get a combined ₦4.5 billion as benefits this year.

This is an increase from the ₦3.6 billion the former officials got in 2018, and ₦2.6 billion in 2017.

Also, for the fifth year running, retired heads of government agencies and parastatals will share among themselves ₦1 billion as severance benefits.