The State House under President Bola Tinubu in one day spent over N550million to purchase bags of rice and cartons of seasoning cubes according to records from GovSpend, a civic tech platform tracking the Nigerian government expenditures.
On March 1, 2024, N275,633,850 was paid to Samdan Global Construction and Resources Limited for 1,095 bags of 50kg rice and 4,095 cartons of seasoning cubes.
The same day, N280,590,000 went to Victor Adeks Nigeria Limited for 3000 more bags of rice.
Between March and July 2024, the government in accumulation spent about N1.7billion on several expenses, including rice, diesel, and presidential honorariums.
On March 15, N300,000,000 was paid for presidential honorariums, followed by N400,000,000 on May 29 for the same purpose. By July 5, N433,575,000 was paid to NNPC Retail Ltd for 315,000 litres of diesel.
Two days later, N358,527,663 was spent on unspecified foreign exchange.
Earlier, N701million had been spent to fund the First Lady, Remi Tinubu’s, foreign trips, while N2.3billion was used for President Bola Tinubu’s trips between February and July 2024.
Debo Adeniran, Chairman of the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, told PUNCH that Nigeria needed a new constitution to tackle the profligacy in the government.
He said, “We all know that, until now, there is so much profligacy in government. And until we have a new constitution that regulates government spending, we will still be battling with the problem,” he said.