Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola on Thursday said that it would require over N51 billion to acquire and fuel 9000 vehicles for effective patrol and policing of the state for one year.
LAGOS SEEKS N51 BILLION TO BUY, FUEL 9,000 PATROL VEHICLES FOR POLICE
The governor made the revelation while speaking at the 7th Annual Town Hall meeting in Lagos. A breakdown of the figures shows that N45 billion would be spent on purchase of the 9000 Toyota Hilux vans at a cost of N5million per vehicle while the balance of N6.3 billion will be used to fuel the vehicles.
“Currently we do not have such resources either from our direct government spending on security or from the support that you the citizens give through the Security Trust Fund”, the governor said, noting that though the task is enormous, government intends to approach the task in batches by providing an initial 100 more patrol vehicles to the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), and three vehicles each to the 13 Area Commands and 106 divisional police stations, bringing the number of vehicles required in the first instance to 357.
“The tentative cost of this critical intervention, including vehicle purchase, communication equipment, branding, servicing and refuelling for one year is about N2.3 billion”, he said.
In his opening remarks, Chairman LSSTF, Mr. Remi Makanjuola said the trust fund has over a period of seven years been able to put together the sum of N12 billion in cash and asset to supplement security.
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Also speaking, Executive Secretary, LSSTF, Mr. Fola Arthur-Worrey decried the attitude of the Federal Government to investment in the Nigeria Police Force, stressing that N311 billion was budgeted for the police force in 2013 out of which N293 billion is for personnel cost.
“This leaves just N8 billion for overheads and N10 billion for capital expenditure”, he said, adding that only N400 million was set aside in the budget for purchase of vehicles for the police force.
He argued that the projection leaves a policeman with an operational cost of N21, 000 per year.
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