FG to spend N3.3bn on Obasanjo, Jonathan, others

The Federal Government will spend a total of N3.3bn on former heads of the government and its ministries, departments and agencies in 2023.

Severance benefits to retired heads of government agencies and parastatals will cost the country N1bn, while the entitlements of former presidents/heads of state and vice-presidents/Chief of General Staff was allocated N2.3bn.

The beneficiaries will include former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan; ex-military Heads of State, Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Yakubu Gowon; former Vice-Presidents Atiku Abubakar and Namadi Sambo, among others.

This is contained in the 2023 Appropriation Bill passed by the National Assembly, with the total estimates raised from the proposed N20,507,942,180,704 to N21,827,188,747,391, a difference of N1,319,246,566,687.

The 2023 budget is the eighth and the last to be presented by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.); and the last to be passed by the 9th National Assembly.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government proposed a total of N470bn for revitalisation of tertiary institutions and upgrade of university lecturers’ salaries.

However, the National Assembly has passed only the N300bn budgeted for the institutions’ revitalisation, leaving out the N170bn proposed for upward salary review for university lecturers.

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), in his address to a joint session of the National Assembly while laying the budget on December 7, 2022, announced a N470bn intervention fund to end the protracted crisis between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities.

In the budget, the Nigerian Postal Service also got N10bn for restructuring and recapitalisation, while the sum of N1.92bn was allocated to ‘special intervention fund for construction of storage facility in Benin to house repatriated artefacts.’

Under statutory transfers, the National Assembly and its affiliated bodies will spend a total of N194,839,144,401, while the National Judicial Council, which manages the judicial arm of the Federal Government, has been allocated 165,000,000,000.

Though the sum of N169bn was proposed for the federal bi-cameral legislature in the original bill, while the judiciary had a proposed budget of N150bn, N30bn more than it was allocated in 2022.

(Punch)