News

Buhari budgets N900 million for car maintenance, group alleges

Published

8 years ago

April 7, 2018

The Conference of National Assembly Legislative Aides (CONASSLA), a forum of current and former aides to members of the national assembly, has revealed that President Muhammadu Buhari budgeted over N900 million for the running costs of his cars in 2018.

In a statement released on Saturday, Abdullahi Al-Mustapha, Chairman of CONASSLA, said the executive should reveal its running costs in-line with the transparency agenda of the federal government.

CONASSLA said the information should be published “in seven days”.

“This request stems from openness of the national assembly in recent times, with the disclosure of the running costs of senators and the inexplicable 2018 budgetary provisions that show that the president alone, has budgeted over N900 million for the running costs of his cars in 2018,” the statement read.

“The national security adviser (NSA) has budgeted over N1.14 billion for the cleaning of his office in 2018; and the minister of transport has budgeted N10 billion for his transportation vehicles in 2018.

“These figures, when combined with the fact that the Directorate of State Security (DSS) intends on spending over N2.2 billion on social media running costs, and the minister of communication, has owned up to receiving $800,000 in estacode, begs the question – how much does the executive spend in running costs?

“We call on the executive branch to publish the full list of running costs of all the offices and individuals within its purview in seven days.”

The call for the executive to reveal its running cost is sequel to the revelation of Shehu Sani, senator representing Kaduna central, who said lawmakers in the upper legislative chamber receive N13.5 million monthly as running costs.