Yacht not for Tinubu, but for navy – Presidential Aide
The house of representatives on Thursday cancelled the controversial N5 billion budgetary allocation for the presidential yacht and moved the proposed sum to student loans thereby increasing it from N5.5 billion to N10 billion.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu had budgeted N5 billion each for the purchase of a presidential yacht and another N5.5 billion for the Education Loan Fund as part of the implementation of the Higher Education Access Act, 2023, otherwise known as Students Loan Act.
The chairman of the house committee on appropriation, Mr Abubakar Bichi announced the dropping of the yacht allocation after Thursday’s passage of 2023 supplementary budget of N2.17 trillion.
Addressing journalists, the lawmaker said the committee removed the item and moved the money to the student loan section to make it N10 billion.
He explained thatthe need became necessary following low budgetary allocation for students.
The committee also increased the budgetary allocation of the ministry of defence from N476 billion to N546 billion 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
Furthermore, he announced that N100 billion was retained for Federal Capital Territory as requested by the minister of FCT, Mr Nyesom Wike
Meanwhile, the presidency has denied that Tinubu requested for any yacht in the supplementary budget.
The senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, Mr Temiope Ajayi, said in a statement that Tinubu did not request for any yacht and does not need one to perform the functions of his office
The media aide said the request for a yacht was framed in the navy’s budget and it is assumed that they have an operational reason for it.
The statement reads: “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 it is 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 economic situation of the country. 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 then was captured in that year’s budget as “website”. Naturally, it generated a massive controversy as people, rightly, asked to know the type of website that will be built with N300 million.
“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 as if it is the president that 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.”
