Budget: Security vote shoots up to N1trn

The Federal Government is to spend a total of N1.055 trillion next year on security, according to the details of the 2013 budget, representing an increase of N135 billion over what was appropriated for the sector this year. A breakdown of the budget, presented to the National Assembly by President Jonathan on Wednesday, showed that the security agencies combined will gulp more than one-fifths of the N4.92 trillion budget.

Daily Trust reported on Thursday that the security sector has retained the top position on the budget chart with Defence and Police alone getting a total of N668.56 billion, according the highlights given by Jonathan on Wednesday.

New details contained in the full budget documents made available to Daily Trust at the weekend show that the total security vote shot up to N1.055 trillion when figures from all the security agencies are added up.

These are Defence, N349 billion; Police formations, N311.1 billion; Police Affairs, N8.5 billion; Interior, N156.1 billion; and Office of the National Security Adviser, N116.4 billion.

The total represents an addition of N135 billion over the N920 billion budgeted for 2012.

Billions for security gadgets

A further breakdown of the security budget shows that the Defence Headquarters is to spend N150 million on travelling and training.

Nigerian Army is allocated N128.1 billion, N5.1 billion of it is for overheads, N116.2 billion for personnel and N6.7 billion capital costs.

Nigerian Navy has total allocation of N71.4 billion out of which N13 billion is for capital expenditure, N51.9 personnel, N6.8 billion for overheads and N58.4 billion for recurrent expenditure.

The Airforce will spend N68.762 billion next year and N54.7 billion of it is for personnel cost, N6.9 billion for overheads, and N7.1 billion will go for capital expenditure.

The Nigerian Army will spend N510 million on motor vehicle maintenance, N887.7 million office and residential quarters maintenance and a total of N2.1 billion on training and travels.

N1 billion is allocated for procurement of various types of ammunition for the army while production of armoured personnel carriers will cost N350 million.

The Navy is proposing N10 billion to purchase ships, N1.973 billion on defence equipment and another N1.3 billion on training and travels; N90 million on generators.

For the Air Force, N1.5 billion will be spent on travels and training, while rehabilitation and repairs of defence equipment got N3.7 billion.

The Defence missions has a total of N10.3 billion out of which N539.6 million will go for purchase of secured communication equipment for the missions.

The National Security Adviser’s office has N1.034 billion as security votes, satellite communication in the FCT will cost N6.782 billion, data signal centre N9.8 billion, iridium/communication platform also in the FCT N2 billion, motorised direction finder 12 4X4 jeeps N178 million,  cyber security N142 million and presidential communication network got N1.3 million.

Counter terrorism equipment will cost N3 billion.

The Police will spend N165 million on 3 armoured toyota landcruiser vehicles and armoured hilux for GSM tracking, N310 million is for patrol vehicles, special operational vehicles got N340 million, N455 million is for bullet vests and ballistic helmets.

Also, explosive disposals will gulp N250 million, dogs and handling equipment N50 million, operational vehicles for mobile police N150 million, mounted troops accessories N50 million, automated finger print identification system N70 million, forensic equipment and provision of DNA test and crime scene laboratories N105.

Source: Daily Trust