The Zamfara State House of Assembly, on Tuesday, November 26, 2019, abolished payment of pension and other entitlements to former governors, their deputies, House Assembly speakers and their deputies.
The development comes barely 48 hours after the immediate past governor, Yari, in a leaked memo, wrote the incumbent Governor requesting the immediate payment of his two month pension and entitlements running into millions.
Presenting the bill before the house during plenary, house leader, Hon. Faruk Musa Dosara (PDP, Maradun I) urged his colleagues to, as a matter of urgency, consider the complete repeal of the law which provides the “jamboree pay” for former political leaders of the state “at the detriment of retired civil servants who have not been paid their entitlements over the years.”
According to Hon. Dosara, these category of past leaders are collecting over N700 million naira annually which he said the present economy of the state cannot accommodate at the moment.
Seconding the motion, Hon. Tukur Jekada Birnin Tudu (PDP, Bakura) said the abolition of the law was highly necessary as it is detrimental to the socio-economic well being of the people.
After much deliberations and contributions by the house members, the speaker Rt Hon Nasiru Mu’azu Magarya ordered the clerk of the house to give the bill first and second reading and later the house went for a ‘committee of the whole’ in which the bill thereafter went for a third reading and passed into law.
In a statement sent to Igbere TV via email, Public Relations Officer of the House, Mustapha Jafaru Kaura, said the bill will be sent to the Governor for assent.
“With this development, all past political leaders in Zamfara state will no longer enjoy any entitlements unless those prescribed by National Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission”, he said.
