During the 2023 election campaign, Premier Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley promised not to collect “a dime” of the lucrative post-term salaries that legislators had awarded themselves when they passed the so-called “Greedy Bill” less than two years earlier.
Now he’s not so sure.
Mr. Wheatley told a Friday press conference that he hasn’t relinquished the payments in writing and that he and other House of Assembly members should decide whether to take the optional money only on leaving office.
“It’s going to be for individual members, in consultation with their families, to make the decisions of what they accept and what they don’t accept,” the premier said, adding, “I believe at that time it will be the appropriate time for persons to make those decisions.”
Provision repealed
A provision in the original bill — which is officially called the Retiring Allowances Legislative Services (Amendment) Act, 2021 — allowed parliamentarians to continue to receive their full salaries for up to four years after leaving office.
The provision sparked a public outcry, and the HOA repealed it after the 2023 election. Citing legal reasons, however, members phrased the October 2023 amendment to permit members of the previous HOA to keep the post-term salary payments unless they submit a written request explicitly turning them down.
“Once persons have a right, you can’t take that away,” Mr. Wheatley explained Friday.
After the 2023 election, six former HOA members were eligible, including disgraced former premier Andrew Fahie, who is currently serving a prison term of 11 years and three months in the United States on drug-smuggling charges.
Mr. Wheatley told the HOA in February 2024 that the total cost of paying off the six former members — who did not respond to previous Beacon requests to say whether they would take the payouts — could reach nearly $2.7 million unless the members turned down the awards in writing.
He said Friday he did not know how much was ultimately paid out, and his office did not respond to requests for that information by press time yesterday afternoon.
Mr. Wheatley is among seven current HOA members — the ones who were returned to office in 2023 — who will also be eligible for the payouts when they leave office unless they turn them down.
Mr. Wheatley said he believes the six current members who did not serve in the previous House are not eligible, but his office did not respond to a request to confirm this claim.
Secret raises
Mr. Wheatley’s Friday comments came amid simmering public anger that HOA members doubled their baseline salaries behind closed doors and kept it secret for more than 18 months — until the move came to light last month in a report from the auditor general.
Refusing to refer to the 2021 law by its public nickname of the “Greedy Bill,” Mr. Wheatley said some former HOA members could find themselves in a “dire situation” requiring additional payments.
“As premier and minister of finance, I’ve witnessed many former legislators who have served the country well, who are towards the end of their lives in a very dire situation as it pertains to how they support themselves,” he explained.
The premier added that until the recent wage hikes, the base salary for the lowest-paid HOA members was $36,000.
“No legislator should have to be able to live on that having served in the highest office of government,” he said.
He did not mention that legislators earning a $36,000 baseline salary before the secret raises already took home nearly $100,000 a year once allowances were included.
The premier did, however, acknowledge that some of the provisions in the original “Greedy Bill” were overly generous and “excessive.”
“We went to the HOA and we revoked those,” he said. “So future Houses of Assembly would not benefit from some of the provisions of the bill.”
Personal choice
On Friday, the premier also insisted it is a matter of lawmakers’ individual choice whether to accept the payments.
Pressed on whether he had made good on previous promises to relinquish his own entitlement by informing authorities in writing that he did not want it, Mr. Wheatley said the issue had not yet arisen.
“That letter must be written when persons are ready to retire, or they have been retired,” he said. “I’m not ready to retire right now, and I have no intention of writing any letters. I will be contesting the next election, and I hope to be successful. If I’m not successful, then we will have decisions to make after that.”
The original “Greedy Bill” stipulated that lawmakers who served one or two full terms in the HOA would be paid two years’ salary upon leaving office. Those who served three or four full consecutive terms would get three years’ salary, and those who served five or more terms would receive four years’ salary.
Retirement pay
Another provision in the law — which was not rescinded — redefined “salary” to include allowances when calculating legislators’ retirement allowance.
The retirement pay — calculated at a rate of two thirds a member’s highest pay while in office — is provided for life to any former legislator age 50 and over who served at least five years.
A report by the auditor general released last month revealed that HOA members had secretly agreed in December 2023 to increase their collective salaries by 119 percent, from $681,000 to nearly $1.5 million.
The report also alleged that government had failed to calculate the financial implications for legislators’ retirement allowances.
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