Governors are to spend billions of naira on foodstuffs, vehicles, entertainment, maintenance and others in the 2016 fiscal year,Saturday PUNCHinvestigation has revealed.
The information is contained in the 2016 budget proposals as presented by many of the state governors.
Deliberations on the proposals are ongoing at the various state Houses of Assembly but some of the copies of the proposed budgets exclusively obtained by our correspondents showed that the governments had budgeted billions of naira for feeding, travels, vehicles, maintenance, allowances and others.
For instance, Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State had presented the 2016 budget proposal of N350bn to the state House of Assembly.
A copy of the proposed budget obtained bySaturday PUNCHshowed that the government budgeted N13.9bn as overhead cost for the office of the Chief of Staff to the Governor.
A breakdown of the overhead cost showed that N1.4bn was proposed for entertainment and hospitality in 2016 for the governor under the office of the Chief of Staff.
A further breakdown under the sub-head showed that entertainment at meetings would gulp N500m while financial assistance was put at N900m.
Under travel and transportation, a total of N844m has been budgeted with local travel and transport gulping N832m while foreign trips were put at N12m.
The governor’s office is expected to spend N560m on maintenance repairs and services with plant and generator gulping N100m.
In the aspect of other services, the governor’s security vote was pegged at N4bn, while contingency and press/public relations were proposed to gulp N2.1bn and N610m respectively.
For the office of the deputy governor, overhead cost was put at N225m.
In Delta State, findings showed that the administration of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa budgeted N25bn for the running of the Government House.
Meanwhile, the government has been criticised by some residents over some of its appointments and its pace, which has been described as slow.
Special Adviser to the Governor on Labour Matters, Mr. Mike Okeme, said the N25bn budgeted for the Government House would take care of “repairs, maintenance, logistics, and others.”
Sources said the governor would not likely execute any project because of cash crunch.
A source said, “The man will not execute any project rather; he will keep receiving visitors on courtesy calls as nothing is going on in the state.”
The Plateau State budgeted N8.98bn for the administration of the Government House.
Apart from that, there are some projects the state governor, Mr. Simon Lalong, plans to execute this year, which include the completion of a new Government House, renovation and expansion of the state House of Assembly complex and the renovation and furnishing of the state secretariat.
The Special Adviser to the State Governor on Media, Mr. Mark Longyen, identified other projects to be executed under the budget to include the building and furnishing of a protocol lounge at the Yakubu Gowon Airport, Heipang.
The appropriation bill submitted to the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly by the state governor apportioned N66.86bn to administration, N9.89bn to education and N7.419bn to health.
Information about the amount budgeted for the State House, governor’s aides and others could not be ascertained as of the time of filing this report.
The Commissioner for Information and Communications, Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Aniekan Umana, said, “We need to look at the budget when the House finishes deliberation on it. As of now, we do not have a budget, what we have now is a proposal; until the House of Assembly passes it into law and the governor gives his assent to it; it is only then we can look at International Statement of Accounting Standard, which breaks down everything.
The Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation and Finance, Mr. Usoro Akpanuso, said work was not yet concluded on the appropriation bill.
The Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Akan Okon, promised to get back to our correspondent as he said he was on board a flight to Abuja.
Meanwhile, the Edo State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party has described the state’s 2016 budget as a budget of misappropriation, saying that the state governor, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole, appropriated N10.65bn, representing 9.6 per cent of the total budget to his office.
http://www.punchng.com/2016-govs-budget-billions-of-naira-for-feeding-maintenance-others/
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