LOST BUT FOUND BUDGET; A PEEP INTO CARS AND REPAIRS

Buhari In Aso Villa

The Senate has started the debate on the 2016 Appropriation Bill after agreeing with President Muhammadu Buhari to treat “the lost but found copy”.
Though much has not changed in the N6.08 Trillion budget, there are fears about how the government will raise money to run the budget with the main source of income, the crude, falling in value by the day.

At present a barrel of petrol is sold for $38 and there are indications that the price may still go down. The budget is big, the income is dwindle yet the allocations for some departments and utilities are spurious, judging by what the public are expecting.
New assembly, new cars; new presidency, new office rehabilitations. And so Buhari’s government must appropriate funds for these.


A letter from the president on the corrected copy of the budget was read on Tuesday by the senate president, Bukola Saraki, during senate plenary and a peep into the document suggests a little difference between ex-president Goodluck Jonathan’s N5 Trillion Budget and the present one. Now in the area of office and residence rehabilitation.
One would have expected president Buhari to cut the budget on Rehabilitation/repairs of residential buildings and electricity facilities as he did for purchase of exotic cars.

Previously, rehabilitation and repair got N388 million and N1.7 billion respectively but have now been raised to N642.6 million and N1.8 billion respectively.
Another provision of N3.9 billion has been made for the rehabilitation of office building, while renovation of eight blocks of 16 two-bedroom flats at State House Security quarter, Asokoro, would take about N254.6 million.

About N3.9 billion has been set aside for the annual routine maintenance of Villa facilities by Julius Berger, in addition to N764.7million provided for the construction/provision of recreational facilities.
Unarguably, the corrected budget shows that budgets for cars have been drastically reduced. For instance there is a cut of N8.09 billion for the purchase of various brands of vehicles for State House operations during the year.

The government will now spend only N1.34 billion to buy only five BMW saloon cars and jeeps as well as buses for use by the Presidency during the year.
A total of N7.52 billion was provided previously for the purchase of various exotic vehicles, including BMW saloon cars, in addition to another N566 million for the procurement of vehicles, including 16-seater Toyota Hiace coaster buses for the State House.
Despite the adjustments to the allocations to the various departments and units, the total appropriation of N39.13 billion for the Presidency remained unchanged in both the previous and current budget versions.

Details of the different adjustments showed that State House headquarters, which got total allocation of N11.91 billion in the original budget has now been cut by N100 million, same as allocations for its recurrent costs, overheads, honorarium & sitting allowance as well as miscellaneous expenses.
Equally, the purchase of fixed assets, which received N4.57 billion previously, has drastically been reduced to about N1.2 billion, while preservation of the environment and wild life conservation, which got a total of N978.3 million, has now been reduced to N347.4 million.
The Office of the Chief of Staff to the President had its initial allocation of N2.3 million raised to N22.3 million, while allocation to the office of the Chief Security Adviser to the President has also been raised from N3.18 million to N28.18 million.

Details of the provision for the two offices include allocation of N25 million each for overhead costs, recurrent and miscellaneous expenditures. Another N25 million has been budgeted for honorarium & sitting allowance for the office of the Chief of Staff.
The State House Medical Centre has been allocated N100 million for total overheads and recurrent costs.

The State House, Lagos Liaison Office, which had its allocation increased from N126.7 million to N151.7 million, would get in addition N25 million each for recurrent, overhead and miscellaneous costs.
About N2.3 billion provided earlier for the construction and general provision of fixed assets as well as recreational facilities for the State House has now been removed, while rehabilitation and repairs of fixed assets previously allocated N4.48 billion was increased to N13.2 billion.