2017 Budget: Former Leaders to Get N400m for Vehicles

Seven former heads of state and four former Vice Presidents and Chiefs of General Staff, will get new vehicles worth N400m in 2017.

This is part of the N9.882bn budgeted for the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation as contained in the 2017 Appropriation Bill before the National Assembly.

PUNCH reports that N280.099m was budgeted for the purchase of vehicles for seven former Presidents and Heads of State and N120.090m would be used to procure vehicles for four former Vice-Presidents and ex-Chiefs of General Staff.

The former Presidents/Heads of State are Gen. Yakubu Gowon (retd.); Olusegun Obasanjo; Shehu Shagari; Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (retd.); Ernest Shonekan; Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar (retd.); and Goodluck Jonathan.

The former Vice-Presidents/Chiefs of General Staff are Alex Ekwueme; Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe (retd.); Gen. Oladipo Diya (retd.); Atiku Abubakar and Namadi Sambo.

The report stated that the number of vehicles and the brands for each of the former leaders were not included in the budget details.

The report added:

Apart from the leaders, the office of the SGF will also buy N32m vehicles for offices and units in the office.

The government will also spend a total of N170m on the nation’s Independence Day and Democracy Day celebrations.

While Nigeria’s Democracy Day holds every May 29, Independence Day holds every October 1.

Both ceremonies have not been marked lavishly since the inception of the present administration.

The office is also expected to spend N1.322bn on the procurement and installation of security system across selected Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

The number of MDAs that will benefit from the procurement is not disclosed in the details.

The office will also spend N104.586m on what it called support and maintenance of e-council document management; it will spend N290m on electronic document and content management system  and another N45m on electronic document management and archival system in the OSGF.

Upgrading and maintenance of Council Chambers Conference System will gulp N55m; N35m will be spent on one Xerox D125 photocopy machine; N20.8m on purchase of 52 laptop computers; N54.35m for the purchase of equipment for the production of staff identity cards and installation of file tracking system; and N5m for the OSGF website.

Another N3.8m is budgeted for the purchase of what is called multi-functional photocopy machine for the Procurement Department and N29.5m for archival project Phases I, II and III for cabinet secretariat document and file organisation.

Photo Credit: NAN PHOTO