President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not ask for a presidential
yacht, Tope Ajayi, his spokesman, has said.
There has been outrage since details of the N2.1 trillion
supplementary budget Tinubu submitted to the National Assembly were published.
According to the budget, N5.09 billion was allocated for the
yacht, N2.9 billion for sport utility vehicles for the Presidential Villa, and
another N2.9 billion for the replacement of operational vehicles for the
presidency.
The yacht was listed under the Nigerian Navy’s proposed
capital expenditure of N42.3 billion.
Reacting to the criticisms that have trailed the issue,
Ajayi said he doubted if his principal needed one to perform the functions of
his office.
“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 yatch 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,” Ajayi wrote in a piece.
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com