The N 4 billion requested by the FCT Minister in the 2013 budget for building of the First Ladies Mission House in Abuja was today rejected by the Senate. The rejection was contained in the summary report of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) 2013 budget which was approved by the Senate.
The said amount was said to have generated ripples at the Senate during its presentation after the budget was submitted by the FCT Ministry to the National Assembly for consideration and approval.
Senate Committee Chairman on FCT, Senator Smart Adeyemi said in his committee’s report that; “it is worthy of note that the proposed appropriation for the construction of building for First Ladies Mission in Africa has been distributed to meet pressing needs in the area of engineering and satellite towns.”
According to Adeyemi, he said; “due to litigation in respect of the proposed plot of land, the money cannot be accessed this year.”
As he added that it is not proper for the Senate to appropriate for a land that is not available.
Meanwhile the Senate approved the sum of N259, 649,520,705 as the 2013 budget for the FCT. The breakdown of the FCT budget shows that personnel cost amounted to N48.6billion while the overhead was put at N50.5billion, amounting to total recurrent expenditure of N99.182billion.
The amount represented 38.2 per cent of the total budget. The capital expenditure was put at N160.4billion or 61.8 per cent of the total sum. The committee also slated the sum of N48, 716,036 as surplus budget.
It will be recalled that a lot of pressures were mounted by most Nigerians urging the lawmakers not to approve the sum having seen it as a waste of scarce resources.
