Ebonyi Governor, Francis Nwifuru, Splashes N6.5billion On Vehicles Amid High Poverty, Unemployment

Ebonyi Governor

OpenLife Nigeria reproduces an earlier report in Sahara Reporters in which staggering financial figures on vehicles outweigh consideration for critical sector developments in Governor Francis Nwifuru’s administration

The vehicles were purchased for the state government officials.

A review of budget performance documents has shown that the Governor Francis Nwifuru-led Ebonyi State government spent the sum of N6.5billion on purchase of vehicles in the first three months of 2024.

According to details on the budget performance documents, the state spent N5.367 billion for 150 vehicles for “monetised vehicles for government officials. ”

This would mean that each official that benefited from this got a vehicle worth N35million.

Another sum of N1.29 billion was spent on twenty vehicles for the current administration. This puts the cost of each vehicle at N64.5 million.

This expenditure may have been made by the office of the secretary to the state government, this is given that in the first three months of the year, the office expended exactly the same amount spent on purchase of vehicles N6.5 billion, however, all of the agencies under the office recorded zero naira budget performances.

This expenditure is more than any expenses of the government for provision of infrastructure in the first three months of 2024, per details on the budget performance reports.

It may be safe to say that the government prioritised buying vehicles in the first three months than actual development given that no project got more money than the purchase.

The nearest expenditure was a N4.8 billion spending for Asphalting the airport runway in Ebonyi.

The total capital expenditure for the health ministry in the first three months of 2024 stood at N50 million, the capital expenditure for the ministry of infrastructural development and concession stood at N2.4 billion.

Only N1.8 billion was spent by power and energy ministry, and N6.3 billion by Ministry of Aviation and technology.

As of the 2022 multidimensional poverty index, unemployment in Ebonyi was put at 40.2%.

This would mean that four out of every ten persons in Ebonyi are unemployed.

In Ebonyi, 1.7 million persons within the ages of 0-17 are multidimensionally poor while another 1.9 million persons who are 18-years upward are also noted as poor.

Ebonyi is also the highest in the south eastern Nigeria.

87% of persons in Ebonyi are deprived of sanitary facilities, 71% lack access to clean drinking water, school attendance stands at only 16.6% in Ebonyi.

Reports have also highlighted the poor state of health centres in Ebonyi State for instance.