National assembly designate ₦6.4bn for cars after spending billions on them in 2016

The national assembly has designated a whooping ₦6.4bn in the 2017 budget for the purchase of “motor vehicles”.

The senate intends to spend N2.6bn on automobiles, while the house will do the same at the cost of ₦3.8bn.

However, there seems to be a troubling issue with the budgetary allocation for cars.

A check on the budget shows an increase in the budget on cars by ₦1.7bn, when compared to last year’s budget of N4.7bn

In February 2016, the management of the national assembly took delivery of 10 princely cars for the senate president at the cost of about ₦330m. This was when the country was in the throes of recession.

And in November of the same year, the house of representatives took delivery of some Peugeot 508 series at the cost of about ₦3.6bn for its members.

Federal lawmakers will spend ₦235m on newspapers alone.

While the senate will spend ₦424m on photocopying machines and other office equipment, the house will spend ₦353m on the same.

Also, the upper legislative chamber will spend ₦293m on the printing of non-security document and ₦247m on medical supplies while the lower legislative chamber will spend ₦686m on printing and ₦503m on medical supplies.

For security services, the senate will spend ₦449m while the house has ₦960m for the same purpose.

The legislators in the upper legislative chamber will spend ₦578m on fuel and lubricants while those in the lower chamber will spend ₦1.6bn on the same.

For refreshments and meals senators will spend ₦409m; for publicity and advertisement ₦1.4 billion, while their counterparts in the house will gulp ₦913m for the same items.

Contingency and programme activities for the senate will take ₦1.3bn and ₦2.6 billion respectively, while the same will take ₦890m and ₦3.5bn for the house.

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