The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has proposed to spend a total of N4.131 billion on refreshments and meal subsidies for its staff in the 2021 fiscal year, Daily Independent is reporting.
This was even as members of the House Committee on Finance expressed dismay at FIRS for proposing to expend a total of N1, 819,556,000 on contract drivers in 2021.
According to budget documents presented before the James Faleke-led Committee on Finance, and seen by Daily Independent, the service is also proposing the sum of N310 million as security vote for the chairman in its 2021 budget estimates.
The figures which are contained on page 17 under the proposed Recurrent Overhead for the Year 2021 of the agency’s budget documents shows that while the sum of N340 million is proposed for ‘refreshments and meals’, a whopping sum of N3, 791,456,233 was proposed as ‘meal subsidy’.
However, the total spent on refreshments as a line item in 2020, according to the documents, was N337,320,234.
A closer look at the document also shows that the concept of meal subsidy as proposed by the service in 2021 is a new introduction to its budget proposal as there was no such thing in 2020.
The agency is also proposing to spend another N4.2 billion for staff welfare, festivity, and other unspecified items.
This line item could be seen on page 18 under Recurrent Overhead for the year 2021.
The agency, on page 47 of its document, has also proposed to erect solar streetlights at unspecified locations across the country. On page 51, the agency proposed to spend the sum of N150 million for the said project.
Also under a subhead on page 51, captioned, ‘Power Electricity Distribution’, the agency has proposed to spend the sum of N680 million.
