The House of Representatives, on Thursday, scrapped the allocation of the Yacht
By Emma Ogbuehi
Against the backdrop of public angst against rumoured budget for presidential yacht and the denial by President Bola Tinubu’s aides on such request, the House of Representatives, on Thursday, scrapped the allocation of the yacht. The House rather moved the proposed sum to student loans thereby increasing allocation for student loans to 10bn as against the initial 5. 5bn.
The Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee Abubakar Bichi Abubakar made this known while addressing newsmen. He said the need became necessary following low budgetary allocation for students.
The Committee also increased the budgetary allocation of the ministry of Defence from 476bn to 546bn following security concerns
Bichi also disclosed that the minimum wage for workers was considered and approved for onward transmission to the executive while promising proper legislative oversight to ensure 100 per cent implementation
The sum of 100bn was retained for FCT as requested by the minister of FCT Nyesom Wike
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Presidential yacht wasn’t requested for by Tinubu – Aide
Dropping the allocation for the presidential yacht came on the heels of an aide to President Tinubu on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, claiming that such request was not made in the first place.
The yacht was listed under the Nigerian Navy’s proposed capital expenditure of N42.3 billion.
Reacting to the criticisms that have followed the release of the budget details, Ajayi said in a statement on Thursday that the Navy must have a reason for the inclusion of a yacht in its proposed capital expenditure.
He wrote: “It has become a pattern for some individuals, CSOs and a section of the media to pick one or two line items every budget cycle for sensational headlines, deliberately ignoring context in their reporting.
“The public that should benefit from good journalism, which should primarily educate and adequately inform, is left confused and miseducated due to the mischaracterisation of issues and misrepresentation of facts.
“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 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 country’s economic situation. 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 was captured in that year’s budget as a “website”. Naturally, it generated a massive controversy as people, rightly, asked to know the type of website that would 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 that the President 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.