Governors are to spend billions of naira on foodstuffs, vehicles, entertainment, maintenance and others in the 2016 fiscal year, Saturday PUNCH investigation has revealed. The information is contained in the 2016 budget proposals as presented by many of the state governors.
Deliberations on the proposals are ongoing at the various state Houses of Assembly but some of the copies of the proposed budgets exclusively obtained by our correspondents showed that the governments had budgeted billions of naira for feeding, travels, vehicles, maintenance, allowances and others.
For instance, Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State had presented the 2016 budget proposal of N350bn to the state House of Assembly.
A copy of the proposed budget obtained by Saturday PUNCH showed that the government budgeted N13.9bn as overhead cost for the office of the Chief of Staff to the Governor.
A breakdown of the overhead cost showed that N1.4bn was proposed for entertainment and hospitality in 2016 for the governor under the office of the Chief of Staff.
A further breakdown under the sub-head showed that entertainment at meetings would gulp N500m while financial assistance was put at N900m.
Under travel and transportation, a total of N844m has been budgeted with local travel and transport gulping N832m while foreign trips were put at N12m.
The governor’s office is expected to spend N560m on maintenance repairs and services with plant and generator gulping N100m.