2018 budget: FG to spend N9.5bn on residential, office rents
The budget for house rent for Nigeria’s over 20 defense missions abroad comes at a time federal lawmakers have advocated for their holistic review
The federal government has proposed to spend N9.4 billion on residential and office rents for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as several foreign missions in 2018.
Daily Trust’s analysis of the 2018 budget submitted to the National Assembly recently showed residential apartments for top civil servants, including official quarters for personnel in Nigeria’s foreign missions, will consume N5 billion while office rents for MDAs and foreign Missions will gulp N4.48 billion.
The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, last year revealed that Nigeria spent N3.55 billion on rent from in a period of three years from 2012 to 2014.
Analysis showed that the amount to be spent on rent this year is about 265 per cent more than the amount spent on the same purpose between 2012 and 2014.
Adeosun had tasked the efficiency unit to focus on the issuance of price guidelines and initiatives for reducing expenditure on rent on office and residential buildings but it appears not much has been done in this direction.
There have been calls for the utilisation of confiscated buildings recovered by the federal government for public office and residential purposes.
The breakdown of the 2018 budget proposal showed that the federal government will pay 150 residential rents and 232 office rents next year.
Office rents for foreign missions and the country’s trade offices abroad will gulp N1.88 billion while rents for federal government establishments will cost N2.60 billion in 2018.
Analysis of the office rents showed that the country’s foreign missions in Algiers, Hong Kong and Berlin are the most expensive rents among the foreign mission.
The federal government will pay N48.97 million for the foreign mission office rent in Algiers, N39.20 million in Hong Kong and N30.45 million Berlin as well as N48.87 million for the office of the Consolate General Frankfurt, Germany.
Top spenders in office rent include Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (N144 million), Directorate of State Security Service (N121.64 million), Police Formation and Command Headquarters (N115.10 million), Nigerian Prison Service (N103.62 million), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (N98.53 million), Pension Transitional Arrangement Department Headquarters (N93.2 million), Department of Petroleum Resources (N93.79 million), Federal Road Safety Commission (N80.94 million) and National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (N73.99 million).
Others include Border Communities Development Agency Headquarters (N73.55 million), Consumer Protection Council (N70 million), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (N64.50 million), Nigeria Immigration Service (N64 million), National Productivity Centre (N48.81 million), Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission (N48.72 million), Code of Conduct Bureau (N48.42 million) and National Directorate of Employment (N40.5 million).
Also noticeable are Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (N35 million), National Council of Arts and Culture (N36.10 million), National Film and Video Censor Board (N36 million) Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission and Its Centres (N27 million), Bureau of Public Procurement (N25.50 million) and Military Pension Board (N17.37 million).
Daily Trust also found that eight ministries also pay rent in the nation’s capital Abuja as include in the 2018 budget proposal.
The Ministries include Federal Ministry of Niger Delta (N70.7 million), Ministry Of Mines And Steel Development Headquarters (N46.35 million), Federal Ministry of Information and Culture Headquarters (N27.07 Million), Federal Ministry of Environment Headquarters (N20 million), Federal Ministry Of Power Works and Housing Headquarters (N10.81 million), Ministry of Foreign Affairs Headquarters (N10.50 million), Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment Headquarters (N8.92 Million) and Federal Ministry of Labour And Employment Headquarters (N3.21 Million).
Daily Trust findings also showed that many universities, colleges of education, boards and educational councils also included office rent lines in their budgets.
Here are a few: Federal Polytechnic Bonny (N11.5 million), Federal University of Gashua (N8.81 million), Librarians Registration Council of Nigeria (N3.57 million), National Primary Health Care Development Agency (N3.6 million), University Of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Ilorin (N1.23 million), and Michael Imodu Institute of Labour Studies (N3.7 million).
An examination of the budget for the residential rents as contained in the proposal showed that Nigeria’s defense intelligence missions will gulp the highest amount of N1.4 billion followed by the Air Force, N124 million.
The budget for house rent for Nigeria’s over 20 defense missions abroad comes at a time federal lawmakers have advocated for their holistic review.
According to the lawmakers at a recent plenary session, most of the challenges the country faced, were within the West coast and the African continent and not in Europe and America and the Far East where there are so many defense missions.
The budget proposal also showed that out of the 148 government entities that have one form of residential rents to pay, 107 are foreign missions scattered across Africa, Asia, Europe and America. The missions will spend 60 per cent of the N5 billion (about N3 billion) to foot the bills of official quarters of their staff.
Each of the mission will spend an average of N30 million for the purpose but Nigeria’s mission in Tokyo, Haque and Prague will gulp N116 million, 110 million and N91 million respectively.
However, the country’s foreign mission in Juba, South Sudan will gulp N45.4m more than the amount for the missions in New York (N44 million), Paris (N43 million) and Guangzhou (N34 million) which are of more bilateral relevance to Nigeria.
The Federal Road Safety Commission, State House and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) top the chart of big spenders on official house rent among the core federal ministries, agencies and departments.
Recall that last year, the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, said that the federal government planned to relocate some of its Ministries, Agencies and Departments (MDA) into some recovered looted properties.
On how to reduce the huge amount of rents paid by MDAs, Adeosun said, We are already looking at using properties that were forfeited from recoveries and moving some of our agencies to occupy those properties rather than paying rent.’’
A look at the 2018 budget will show that the federal government must do more to reduce the huge rent burden on the nation’s earnings through the cost-cutting price guidelines as well as the utilisation of recovered looted properties for both residential and office purposes.