The State House will in 2014 spend a total of N12.2billion on recurrent and capital expenditure, with such items as sewage truck, benches, embalming machine, wildlife animals among others accounting for the bulk of the N3.7bn capital vote.
This was contained in the details of the 2014 Budget Proposal presented by President Goodluck Jonathan through the minister of finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to the National Assembly last week.
According to the breakdown, among the projects captured under capital budget are the purchase one sewage truck for N67million, purchase of two benches for N2m, embalming machine for N1.65m, purchase of an x- ray machine for N34.1m and the purchase of a mammography machine at N41.1m.
Others items for which huge allocation has been made under the capital budget include a post mortem table at the cost of N4m, oxygen generating plant for N70m, massage bed worth N2.1m, handcraft rowing machine worth N1.2m, as well as two of sauna baths worth N6m.
Among projects that will be carried out in the State House Medical Centre in the New Year include the construction of a VIP wing at N1.3bn, out of which sum N705.33m was budgeted in the 2014 budget.
Others are the completion of the extension of a dental wing at N50m, construction of a central sterilising building at N50m and the provision of an MRI building and mortuary conversion at the cost of N17.5m.
Also, the sum of N14.5m was set aside in the 2014 budget as the cost of two animals, the names of which were not given.
N8m was budgeted for the upgrading and maintenance of the State House zoo, while renovation of the horses’ paddock for the zoo will gulp N15m.
About N5m will also be spent on the purchase of wildlife capture equipment. On the whole, the sum of N37.5m has been earmarked for wildlife preservation.
Also provided for in the budget is the allocation of N22m for the provision of car trackers for the presidential ground fleet and utility vehicles. An extra N2m is expected to be expended on two fleet-tracking base stations.
While the budget allocated N1.5bn for the general upgrade of villa facilities, another N50m was budgeted for the improvement of electrical installations inside the old banquet hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The N50m was appropriated at a time work is already ongoing on a new N2.2bn banquet hall approved for the Villa by the Federal Executive Council in November 2012.
The electrification project was however marked “ongoing” in the budget details, to give an indication that work had already started and would be completed under the new budget.
The purchase of sports kits for the State House Sports Club will gulp N4.2m; N131.75m has been earmarked for the purchase of kitchen equipment.
The remodelling of the new vice president’s guesthouse at 1 Yakubu Gowon Crescent, Asokoro will gulp N215m, while another N40m is allocated to the furnishing of the same guesthouse.
Allocated to the completion and rehabilitation of the security quarters at Mpape Artillery and Asokoro is N30m, to the rehabilitation of the presidential/ministerial chalet at the airport, Abuja, N10m and to the rehabilitation of the medical centre’s service quarters, N50m.
Source: Leadership
