Over two hundred and fifty-six million Naira of taxpayers revenue to the government was spent on fuel expenses, in the ministry of water resources over the past six years, Tribune Online investigation revealed.
A look at the expenditure pattern of the ministry, according to her last five budgets, from 2017 to 2021 and her proposed budget for 2022, revealed a steady expenditure of N31,472,711 except for the years 2020 and 2022 proposals.
Tagged fuel and lubricants – general, the huge sum of N31,742,711 further broken into “motor vehicle fuel cost N12,575,564 and “plant/generator fuel cost N18,897,147, each year.
This amount remained exclusive, of other fuel-related costs in other budget lines for fuel, vehicle and generator plants maintenances.
The 2022 budget showed that the proposed cost for fuel was over N36 million. Under the budget code of 22020801, the motor vehicle fuel cost proposed by the ministry stood at N6,191,619 while the plant/generator fuel cost stood at N30,000,000.
Cost for maintenance of motor vehicle/transport equipment was put at N6,000,000 with an additional N2.9m captured in the code 22020405 for plant generators.
The amount for fuel are carefully planted in various sub-head of the budget line, Tribune Online perusal of the ministry’s budget further revealed.
While the amount maintained a steady cost of N31.4 million in those years, the ministry bought vehicles and new plants which did not in any way impact itsregular spendings on fuel or maintenances due to the increased vehicles in its pool but kept the expenses remained at the same cost level for the period.
For instance, the ministry of water resources procured vehicles of all kinds for various uses in 2018 captured in the budget line, Economic Recovery Growth Plan. ERGP 21111816, ERGP 28112035, ERGP 28112164 which culminated in the figure, not less than N180m
In the 2018 fiscal year, the ministry spent N13,814,991 as “payment of insurance premium for ministry’s vehicles” this brought the expenses on fuel, insurance and procurement of new vehicles to the cost of N194,270,299 beside the constant expenditure of N31,472,711 annual expenses on fuel.
In spite of another round of vehicles purchased, in the 2019 fiscal year, captured under the ERGP 23010105 of about N116,683,560 the cost of fuel did not change though the uses of these vehicles were for utility purposes.
Two procurement that stood out in the 2019 expenditure is the ERGP 30124632 “purchase of two 4X4 Hilux Utility vehicles” and other electronic items for the cost of N24.6 million while it purchased “5 utility vehicles for accounts and budget (Toyota Hilux) of ERGP7125257 at the cost of N31,787,172.
Twenty Nineteen budget was incomplete without the purchase of two utility vehicles, for stores and general services at the cost of N25,130,565.
The last purchase of the ministry in the 2019 fiscal year was the ERGP “procurement of utility vehicles for the I&D official tours and in-city movements at N23,335,524.
In the 2021 fiscal year, fuel expenditure remained static, at N31,472,711 with an increase of the cost of fuel expenditure on the code 22020401 tagged “maintenance of motor vehicle/transport equipment and 22020405 maintenance of plants/generators N6,417,149 and N4,923,287 respectively.
The cost burned on these curious spendings amounted to over N.5billion on non-data reliable expenditure, at a time the government was struggling to block leakages in its financing.
