National Telescope national telescope newspaper
The National Assembly Thursday approved a N2.176 trillion 2023 supplementary budget proposal with a capital component of N1.165 trillion and a recurrent component of N1.010 trillion.
The proposed spendings approved were part of the N28 billion budgeted for the State House in the supplementary budget.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had, in a letter read in both chambers, asked the federal lawmakers to approve the proposal, the second of such this year, after N819.5 billion was approved to provide palliatives for poor Nigerians July this year.
Also, the House of Representatives boosted the N5billion students loan scheme with yet another N5billion, believed to have been set aside for the procurement of a presidential yacht, a request the presidency said never existed from Tinubu in the first place.
Senate
In his letter to the Senate, President Tinubu said it had become necessary to make further provision for additional palliative measures, including the wage award for public servants and the enhanced Cash Transfer Programme intended to benefit the most vulnerable members of society.
According to the proposals, the Presidency is to renovate President Tinubu and Vice President Kassim Shettima’s official residences in Lagos and Abuja with N13.5 billion and purchase official vehicles for the First Lady’s Office with N1.5billion.
Other planned expenditures, according to the president, include defense equipment and infrastructure, particularly roads.
The breakdown of the State House budget showed that N4 billion would be spent for the renovation of residential quarters for Mr President; renovation of Aguda House to gulp N2.5 billion; renovation of Dodan Barracks, official residence of Mr President in Lagos, N4 billion; and renovation of official quarters of vice president in Lagos N3billion, all totaling N13.5 billion.
Other items for the State House include the purchase of SUV vehicles at N2.9 billion and the replacement of operational pool vehicles at N2.9 billion, as well as the computerization and digitalisation of the State House that was allocated N200million.
Further breakdown indicated that Police formations and commands were to get N50 billion, Department of State Services (N49 billion), Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) N29 billion, while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) got N18 billion.
Capital supplementation was allocated N210.5 billion, Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security was allocated N200 billion, while the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) and Ministry of Housing got N100 billion each.
The letter further showed Service Wide Votes was allocated N615 billion while the Ministry of Defence got N476.54 billion and Ministry of Works N300 billion.
Heads of the relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to benefit from the N2.176 trillion supplementary budget had Wednesday, separately appeared before the Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations to defend their submissions.
Among those present at the defence were Minister of Works Dave Umahi, Minister of Housing Arc Ahmed Dangiwa, Minister of FCT Nyesom Wike, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Senator Abubakar Kyari, Minister of State for Defence Bello Matawale and the Service Chiefs.
The various heads of agencies during the supplementary budget defence session, gave justifications for monies earmarked for their various agencies.
Reps boost loans scheme
In a related development, the House of Representatives Thursday scrapped the alleged five billion naira request for the procurement of a presidential yacht, and moved same to the students loan scheme.
in a chat with journalists in Abuja, Chairman House Committee on Appropriations Hon. Abubakar Kabir Bichi explained that the request was no longer part of the total supplementary budget of N2,176,791,286 approved at plenary.
“As far as we are concerned, we don’t have that anymore. We have increased the student loan. If you can recall, the student loan was five billion naira in the budget, and now we have increased it from five to N10 billion so that students can be able to access that facility, so that they can be able to go to school as well”, he said.
Giving breakdown of what had been approved, he said: “We, as a committee, we submitted our report, and the House after careful consideration, approved our submissions. The breakdown is as follows; as you know, the budget total is about N2.1 trillion.
“The Federal Ministry of Defence have N456 billion, the ministry of defence have the largest share, of course we know how important our security is. As you are aware, we had an interaction with them yesterday, and they requested additional funding so they can continue their work, so we have increased their budget from N456 billion to N546 billion, and for police formations and commands, we gave them N50 billion, while the FCT have about N100 billion, you know FCT is very important for us, so we want to ensure that the FCT can compete with any city in the world, that’s why we have decided to give them N100 billion.
“Office of the National Security Adviser, we know how important that office is, initially, their budget was N27 billion, but currently, we have increased that budget to about N50 billion while State House, their initial budget was N28 billion, and we still maintain the budget at N28 billion.
“Ministry of Agriculture, you know how important that is, they are talking about food security and of course, it is very critical and important to our people across the nation. We have approved their initial figure of N200 billion as well.
“Ministry of Housing, you know we have a very serious housing deficit in this country, and Mr President has an agenda that he is going to build as much as he can, so we have approved N100 billion for the Ministry of Housing,
“Service wide votes initially was N615 billion but we have reduced it to N550 billion and for INEC, initially, their request was N18 billion, we had an engagement with the INEC chairman as you are all aware, and he was able to convince us with his submissions, we have maintained the N18 billion”.
Tinubu not for yacht -Presidency
But the presidency said Tinubu never requested for yacht as reported.
The yacht was listed under the Nigerian Navy’s proposed capital expenditure of N42.3 billion.
Reacting to the criticisms that trailed the issue, a spokesman of the president, Tope Ajayi, said he doubted if his principal needed one to perform the functions of his office.
He said: “The trending issues on social media since yesterday are two items in the 2023 supplementary budget. One is the provision for a presidential yacht in the supplementary budget by the Navy and the other is over N6 billion for vehicles to the State House.
“It is important to state clearly that President Bola Tinubu didn’t ask for a presidential yacht and I doubt he needs one to perform the functions of his office. From what I know, the request for a yacht, however it is named or couched in the budget is from the Navy and they must have operational reasons for why it is required.
“The budget office should be in a position to also explain to the public why such expenditure should be accommodated now, considering the economic situation of the country. I must readily admit that the one reason our budgeting system has been a subject of public attack is the very simplistic way some of the line items are described by civil servants, who prepare the budget. Examples abound. Sometimes in 2016, an Enterprise Resource Planning ( ERP) project of the Ministry of Solid Minerals worth over N300m then was captured in that year’s budget as “website”. Naturally, it generated a massive controversy as people, rightly, asked to know the type of website that will be built with N300million.
“It is important to say that journalism should enrich public enlightenment and not create an atmosphere of siege. It is poor reporting to always reduce State House budgetary provisions to the President and Vice President. When the State House makes provision for vehicles, it is reported as if it is the President that will use all the vehicles or eat all the food when a provision is made for food and catering services.
“We have had such inaccurate reporting in the past. A President and Vice President cannot, for any reason, spend N20 million naira to eat in a year if it is about the food they will eat as first and second families. How much food can a person really eat? Yet, we will read headlines that Tinubu, Buhari, Jonathan or whoever the President is wants to spend N5billion on food and catering in a year when in actual fact such budgetary provisions are made to accommodate many state events, meetings, hosting of VIPs, foreign dignitaries, and even visits by other Heads of State, and bilateral and multilateral meetings that the State House will deal with in a given year.”
(Blueprint)
