The Senate has rejected the N355 million foreign trips votes in the 2018 appropriation bill by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).
This followed the presentation of the DPR at the 2018 budget defence before the Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream on Thursday.
Chairman of the committee, Tayo Alasoadura (APC, Ondo State), vowed to drastically reduce the estimates when sending it to the Appropriations Committee.
The DPR Director, Mordecai Dantani Ladan Baba had in his presentation of 2018 budget estimates of the agency, declared that under overhead votes of about N1.2billion, the sum of N60.2million have been proposed for local travels while foreign trips would gulp N355million.
The committee chairman and other members queried why the figure for foreign trips was higher than the N180 million voted for the same purpose in the 2017 budget.
“This your proposed figure for foreign trips in the 2018 fiscal year is too high and must be drastically reduced before presenting it to the Senate for approval.
“Even the N60.2m proposed for local trips in terms of monitoring is also on the high side and may also be reviewed downward”, said the committee chairman.
Other proposals of the agency under overhead votes are: Advertisement N50million, Courier Services N19.1million, Consulting Services N102.3million.
Others are: recruitment N2.5million, promotion N14.6million, fueling and lubricant for generators N182million, Utilities N92.8million among others.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
