Nigerian government stops controversial budgetary allocations

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The Nigerian government has discontinued the allocation of funds for the maintenance of plants and generators in its foreign missions and embassies in countries with stable power supply. This stoppage comes years after a PREMIUM TIMES’ investigation exposed the controversial budgetary disbursement.

The award-winning investigationrevealed the allocation of nearly a quarter of a billion Naira for the maintenance of generators to foreign embassies, which clearly have no need for power generators due to the absence of power cuts in the countries.

The story revealed that despite paying N523 million for electricity charges in 2013, the embassies would spend an extra N170 million – N117 million for fuelling and N51.9 million for maintenance of plants – to power generators in some 100 foreign missions.

The investigation discovered that the funds for the maintenance of generator was not a feature of previous budgets until it was inserted in the 2013 budget.

But a review of the recently released 2017 budget estimate shows that the government has partially discontinued the controversial allocations. The controversial provisions were also not made in the 2016 budgets.

In the 2017 budget, while no funds were allocated for fuelling and maintenance of plants and generators, in foreign missions in countries with stable power supply, funds were allocated for the maintenance of generators and plants in countries with erratic power supply, mainly Third-World countries.

For instance, while funds were allocated for the maintenance and fuelling of generators in missions in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Malaysia and Cameroon, allocations for the items were not made for missions in Germany, China, Turkey, Switzerland, Vietnam, Pakistan, United States.

In African capitals, no funds were allocated for maintenance and fuelling of generators in foreign missions in Dakar, Maputo, Kigali, Pretoria, and Tunis.

The mission in Cairo got an allocation of N3,072,000.00 for fuelling of generator but received no allocations for generator maintenance. Similarly, the mission in Algiers was allocated N614,000 for fuelling of generator but received nothing for generator maintenance.

The mission domiciled in Lisbon, Portugal was, however, allocated N192,000.00 for generator maintenance.

It is the only Western-based mission that received allocation for generator maintenance.

However, no fund was allocated for fuelling of the generator. Portugal, like most other European countries, has regular power supply.