Presidential Yacht: Reps Accuse Navy Of Purchase Without Approval
Controversies continue in trailing the proposed procurement of N5.095 billion Presidential Yacht by the Nigerian Navy which was expunged from the N2.177 trillion Supplementary budget passed by the House of Representatives on Thursday.
Speaking in an interview with the Chairman, the House Committee on Navy, Hon. Yusuf Gagdi who denied knowledge of any budgetary allocation for the procurement, affirmed that the Committee will investigate the infraction.
Hon. Gagdi who expressed concern over the development, argued that there were no provisions in the approved budgetary provisions for the Nigerian Navy over the past four years. He said: “Yes, I’m not aware of it.”
He added that the Navy has been treated unjustly. If the Army has over N200 billion, the Air Force will have N112 billion and the Navy will have only N62 billion. It means they didn’t consider the Navy as one of the Armed Forces agencies that protects the national assets.
He explained that the government want revenue, don’t want crude oil theft, don’t want piracy, don’t want oil bunkering, and instead of strengthening the Agency that is vested with the responsibility of defending the country by sea, in terms of our natural resources, the government is giving money to other sister Agencies beyond the Agency that’s is responsible for the economy prosperity of the nation.
I don’t think that the supplementary budget is even fair to the Nigerian Navy, I can say that any day, any time.
But I equally see that the Presidential Yacht in the budget is not supposed to be there.
It can’t be provided for in the budget. There’s nothing wrong with the appearance of the budget but again if the Yacht is already been in our water.
Who provided for the logistics, you paid for the yacht and the yacht was supplied. What is the arrangement with the Nigerian Navy? I don’t have answers to these until we investigate what is going on.
When asked about the possible time to commence the investigation into the procurement of the presidential Yacht, he said I don’t want to be under pressure, I can’t say anything until I go back to the House, call Committee members, sit down and study the nature of things before we commence an investigation.
