2024 Budget: Reports Of Allocation For Renovation Of My Residence, Purchase Of Computers, Others Fake News –Gbajabiamila

By Daniel Dafe

President Bola Tinubu’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, has said that reports that he is to get a total allocation of N21 billion in next year’s budget estimates presented to the National Assembly by the President last month, is fake news.

Reports had said the breakdown of the proposed figure shows that Mr Gbajabiamila proposed N104 million for the purchase of computers and printers for ‘local travel and transport for international training, adding that the CoS office plans to spend N579 million, while ‘miscellaneous’ is expected to gulp N103 million.

The report said a further breakdown of the proposed budgetary allocations shows that the reconstruction and repair of the CoS’s official residence is to get N10 billion.

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Computer software purchase is expected to gulp about N10.1 billion and N290 million is the allocation for purchase of vehicles.

In a swift reaction, he said in a post on X: “I have seen social media commentary regarding the 2024 Appropriation Bill, particularly the provisions under the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President. Owing to the erroneous nature of these reports, it has become necessary to clarify that there is no provision in the 2024 Appropriation Bill for the renovation of any residence for the Chief of Staff to the President. I live in my private residence. ”

He continued: “The sums mischievously quoted by online bloggers and fake news merchants are for renovating the Presidential Quarters in Dodan Barracks and the Vice President’s Lodge in Lagos, to overhaul the information management and communications facilities in the Presidency to meet modern standards and to provide vehicles for the staff of the Presidency. The sums proposed for these projects are clearly stated in the budget proposal and bear no resemblance to the deceptive online commentary.

“This administration welcomes and encourages scrutiny of government expenditure; this is why the Budget proposal is publicly available. However, healthy public debate about government actions requires us to be responsible with our utterances and engage based on facts rather than insinuations and falsehoods.”