Abuja, Nov. 2, 2022 -The Presidency on Thursday denied that President Bola Tinubu made any request for a presidential yacht.
Tope Ajayi, one of the Presidential Spokesmen, made the denial in a statement.
He said the yacht was listed under the Nigerian Navy’s proposed capital expenditure of N42.3 billion.
“The trending issues on social media since yesterday are two items in the 2023 supplementary budget. One is the provision for a presidential yacht in the supplementary budget by the Navy, and the other is over N6 billion for vehicles for the State House.
“It is important to state clearly that President Bola Tinubu didn’t ask for a presidential yacht, and I doubt he needs one to perform the functions of his office. From what I know, the request for a yacht, however, it is named or couched in the budget is from the Navy, and they must have operational reasons for why it is required.
“The budget office should be in a position to also explain to the public why such expenditures should be accommodated now, considering the economic situation of the country. I must readily admit that the one reason our budgeting system has been the subject of public attack is the very simplistic way some of the line items are described by civil servants who prepare the budget.
“Examples abound. Sometimes in 2016, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project of the Ministry of Solid Minerals worth over N300 million was captured in that year’s budget as a “website”. Naturally, it generated a massive controversy as people, rightly, asked to know the type of website that would be built with N300 million.“It is important to say that journalism should enrich public enlightenment and not create an atmosphere of siege. It is poor reporting to always reduce State House budgetary provisions to the President and Vice President.” (GBN
