Despite the severe economic challenges and soaring inflation affecting citizens nationwide, the Federal Government has allocated N5 billion for renovations at the vice president’s official residence in Lagos State.
In November 2023, the government approved a N2.17 trillion supplementary budget, including N3 billion for renovating the vice president’s Lagos residence and an additional N2.5 billion for his official residence in the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.
However, our correspondent’s review using GovSpend, a civic tech platform that monitors government expenditures, revealed that a total of N5,034,077,063 was actually spent on the Lagos residence renovation in May and September 2024.
A breakdown of these expenses shows that on May 31, 2024, the State House paid N2,827,119,051 to Denderi Investment Limited, an engineering firm, for renovation work at the vice president’s Lagos quarters. On September 5, 2024, the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President made two payments to the same firm—N726,748,686 for additional renovation work and N1,480,209,326 for Phase 2 renovations on the same residence.
Earlier, in November 2023, the Federal Capital Territory Administration announced it would allocate N15 billion to build a “befitting” official residence for the vice president in Abuja. The FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, disclosed this while presenting the FCT’s N61.5 billion supplementary budget to the House of Representatives.
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However, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a civic advocacy group, criticized these expenditures, calling them a fundamental breach of the Nigerian Constitution as well as the country’s international anti-corruption and human rights commitments.
“It will be a grave violation of the public trust and constitutional oath of office for the Senate to approve the plan to spend N15bn on ‘a befitting residence’ for the Vice President at a time when the Federal Government is set to spend 30 per cent (that is, N8.25tn) of the country’s 2024 budget of N27.5tn on debt service costs,” SERAP Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, stated.
Auwal Rafsanjani, Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, stated that the current administration has not been transparent about its commitment to reducing the cost of governance. He pointed out that if the government were sincere, it would have cut allocations across its budgets over the past 16 months.
Similarly, Debo Adeniran, Chairman of the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, argued that without a new constitution to regulate government spending, the country will continue to struggle with wasteful governance.
(Punch Newspaper)
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