Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, has vehemently debunked spurious claims on some media platforms that the 2024 Budget contains an allotment of N21 billion for his accommodation.
Gbajabiamila debunked this wild lies by some social media platforms through his verified X handle, @femigbaja.
The fake report alleged to be in the newly submitted budget to the national assembly by President Tinubu an unfounded item for the office of the Chief of Staff.
The report, which found its way into several online news outlets, claimed a proposed N104 million for the purchase of computers and printers. For’local travels and transport for international trainings,’ the CoS office the report claimed is to spend N579 million, while ‘miscellaneous’ is expected to gulp N103 million.
The debunked report also claimed a further breakdown of the proposed budgetary allocations indicating provisions to reconstruct and repair the CoS’s official residence at a whooping cost of N10 billion.
In the disputed report, computer software purchase for the CoS office is purportedly to gulp about N10.1 billion while N290 million is claimed to have been allocated for purchase of vehicles.
However, in the response posted on his X handle, Gbajabiamila said the report by online fake news bloggers and merchants platforms is false because there is no provision in the 2024 Budget proposal for the renovation of his official residence, noting that he lives in his own house.
He explained that the sums mischievously quoted by online news outlets and those he called fake news merchants were for the renovation of the Presidential Quarters in Dodan Barracks and the Vice President’s Lodge in Lagos and, to overhaul the information management and communications facilities in the Presidency to meet modern standards and to provide vehicles for the staff of the Presidency.
He said: “I have seen social media commentary regarding the 2024 Appropriation Bill, particularly the provisions under the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President. Owing to the erroneous nature of these reports, it has become necessary to clarify that there is no provision in the 2024 Appropriation Bill for the renovation of any residence for the Chief of Staff to the President. I live in my private residence.
“The sums mischievously quoted by online bloggers and fake news merchants are for renovating the Presidential Quarters in Dodan Barracks and the Vice President’s Lodge in Lagos, to overhaul the information management and communications facilities in the Presidency to meet modern standards and to provide vehicles for the staff of the presidency.
“The sums proposed for these projects are clearly stated in the budget proposal and bear no resemblance to the deceptive online commentary.
“This administration welcomes and encourages scrutiny of government expenditure; this is why the Budget proposal is publicly available. However, healthy public debate about government actions requires us to be responsible with our utterances and engage based on facts rather than insinuations and falsehoods.”
