The Nigerian government purchased over $4.4 million and over one million Euros within four months in 2023 for foreign trips for the President and Vice President.
This was revealed in data obtained from GovSpend.ng, an analytics platform run by BudgIT Foundation to give Nigerians access to information on daily spending at all levels of government in the country.
The data showed that between May 11 2023 and September 2023, the government of former President Muhammadu Buhari, which transitioned to that of President Bola Tinubu on May 29, 2023 purchased $4,491,692.80 for the President and Vice President’s foreign trips including trips to Ghana.
A breakdown of the data showed that on July 28, 2023, the Nigerian government purchased the sum of $176,392.80 for N82,040,220.72 for the President to embark on a trip to Ghana and on August 4, 2023, another $315,300 at N146,645,903.88 was spent on the President’s foreign trip.
Also on July 19, 2023, the Nigerian government purchased a total of $4 million at N1,290,782,540 for the President’s foreign trip, and on September 6, 2023, the sum of 1,200,000 Euros was purchased with N269,022,623.40 for another foreign trip embarked upon by the President.
In another spending dated May 11, 2023, it was recorded that the Nigerian government spent N58,658,364 to purchase one million British Pounds for the then-Vice President’s trip.
However, the record on GovSpend platform stated that one million UK Pounds was purchased, but the dollar was used rather than pounds symbol, leaving room for some clarification.
It was also observed that both dollar and pounds exchange rate at the time did not correspond to the Naira equivalent the record shows that government spent in purchasing the foreign currency. However, SaharaReporters could not verify the exact Naira equivalent spent and amount of foreign current purchased the then-Vice President’s trip in this case.
SaharaReporters earlier reported that the Nigerian government spent the sum of N473 million to sponsor the trips of First Lady Oluremi Tinubu to three countries; United Kingdom, Mozambique and Ethiopia, based on data from public payments portal Govspend.ng.
Tinubu Govt Spent N473Million On First Lady’s Trips To UK, Mozambique, Ethiopia
The Nigerian government spent the sum of ₦126.295 million to sponsor the trip of the First Lady to London, UK.
The amount was equivalent of $83,967.00 in March 2024, meaning the money was exchanged at the rate of N1,504/dollar. Another sum of N144.571 million was spent to sponsor her trip to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
The trip was made on February 9, 2024. The dollar equivalent of the amount was $96,118. Another sum of N202.386 million was spent to sponsor the First Lady’s trip to Mozambique in March 2024. The dollar equivalent of the money stood at $126,834.00.
All of these expenditures were recorded on the same day, March 15, 2024 on the Govspend website.
The expenditures come amid concerns on the need to ensure proper management of the country’s scarce resources. The Nigerian government has continually lamented inadequate revenue.
The organised labour recently demanded an increase in the minimum wage, a development that has continued to trigger disagreements, with the government saying it is unable to pay due to paucity of funds.
Sahara Reporters recently raised flags on the inability of the country to release budget performance reports under the Tinubu-led administration, a violation of the law and one that denies citizens access to information on what the government is spending money on and how it is spent on a quarterly basis.
Source: Sahara Reporters
