Aso Rock to spend N4.2bn on food, uniforms, others
By John Ameh, Abuja
Published: Thursday, 11 Dec 2008
The Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, will next year spend a whopping N4.2bn on food items, uniforms and office maintenance.

The sum is among the estimates of the 2009 budget, which President Umaru Yar’Adua presented to a joint session of the National Assembly last week. Total budget size is N2.87tn.

The details of the budget, which our correspondent obtained on Wednesday, showed that food supplies to Aso Rock would cost N205.88m or N17.1m monthly in the coming year.

In 2008, 474m was set aside in the budget for the purchase of food items for the Villa.

Investigations by our correspondent revealed that the same amount (N17.1m) could be used to build four units of a modest three-bedroom bungalow in areas outside the Abuja city centre.

It was learnt that at the price of N7, 000 per bag , the total budget for food items (N205.88m) could procure about 29,412 bags of rice.

However, this does not include a separate N127.6m budgeted for meals to be served during summits, conferences and banquets to be hosted at the State House in 2009.

A further breakdown revealed that out of N4.2bn, the sum of N800m would be used to maintain office buildings in Aso Rock and another N340m on the residential area.

In 2008, N900m was budgeted for the maintenance of office buildings in the Villa, and N440 for residential houses.

Similarly, a budget of N970.4m was set aside for the maintenance of unspecified number of aircraft in the presidential fleet in 2009.

The maintenance of “other infrastructure,” which were not specified, had a separate provision of N207.7m, excluding the sum of N38.6m budget for “maintenance of office equipment.”

It was also observed that N38.8m, N150m, and N14.3m were budgeted for the maintenance of office furniture, vehicles and plants/generators respectively.

Again, “other materials and supplies” as well as “other maintenance services” had budgetary provisions of N105.1m and N50.1m respectively.

Drugs/medical supplies will take N362.7m, while “uniforms and other clothing” will gulp N26.5m in 2009.

More details showed that another N192.9m was set aside for “office materials and supplies,” excluding N109.6m for the printing of non-security documents and N38.6m for security documents.

A separate N35.7m was earmarked for computer materials and another N9m for the “maintenance of computers” at the Aso Rock.

The 2009 budget has already scaled through the Second Reading in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

While the Senate had already hinted that it would pass the document by December 19, at the House, committees began meeting with ministries, departments and agencies on Wednesday to look at the details.

and he calls himself the servant leader

when a president is sick and increasingly unpopular, what become of the nation?

In 2008, 474m was set aside in the budget for the purchase of food items for the Villa.

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