No fewer than 14 ministers in the Goodluck Jonathan Administration will not receive any dime with regards to severance package from the Muhammadu Buhari government having allegedly failed to meet the requirement for benefiting from such.
The ex-ministers that may not get any severance package are said to have spent less than two years in office to qualify for the package.
A clause in their appointment letters reads in part:
“Severance Allowance of 300 %of Annual Basic Salary payable after full tenure of office with government. The allowance will be pro-rated after a minimum of two years tenure.”
It was learnt that some of the affected ex-ministers barely spent a year or three months in office.
In this category are Senator Musiliu Obanikoro (Lagos) – Minister of State for Foreign Affairs II; Mr Kenneth Kobani (Rivers) – Minister of State for Trade and Investment; Patricia Akwashiki (Nasarawa) – Minister of Information; Nicholas Akise Ada (Benue) – Minister of State for Foreign Affairs I; Augustine Akobundu (Abia) – Minister of State for Defence; Fidelis Nwankwo (Ebonyi) -Minister of State for Health; Hauwa Lawan (Jigawa) – Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs and Senator Joel Danlami Ikenya (Taraba) – Minister of Labour and Productivity.
Others are Mr Benjamin Osita Chidoka (Aviation); ex-Governor Ibrahim Shekarau (Minister of Education); Steve Oru (Minister for the Niger Delta); Prince Clement Adeyeye (Minister of State for Works); and Abdul Bulama (Minister of Science and Technology) and Dr. Abubakar Olanrewaju Suleiman(National Planning).
A source told The Nation, said: “The affected ex-ministers have been notified that they are not entitled to severance package in whatever form. They have not met the official requirements for severance package and they won’t get it.
“I think those affected should be up to 20. So far, more than half of those in Jonathan’s cabinet will not get severance package.
“If they had been paid in error, we would have asked them to refund the severance allowance.”
