Budget: DPR to spend N828m on travels, software upgrade, others

By Michael Eboh

Abuja—The Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, is set to spend N828.53 million on computer software acquisition, local and international travels, research and development, fire prevention equipment, among other items in 2017.

In the 2017 Appropriation Bill passed by the National Assembly last week, the total appropriation for the DPR was slashed to N33.734 billion from  N33.761 billion earlier proposed by the executive arm of government.

Many of the capital items listed by the DPR in the 2017 budget were already appropriated for in the 2016 budget, with huge amounts allocated to them.

Specifically, in the 2017 bill, the DPR is seeking to spend N155 million on the purchase of computers; N139.906 million for the purchase of firefighting equipment; N234.4 million for research and development, while computer software acquisition would gulp N83 million.

In the 2016 Appropriation Act, research and development and software acquisition gulped N98.041 million and N366.218 million respectively, while N163.636 million was earmarked for the purchase of firefighting equipment.

Explaining the capital items in the 2017 budget, the DPR disclosed that the N155 million earmarked for computer purchases was for the procurement, installation and configuration of computers for effective ICT penetration.

It also stated that the N139.906 million budgeted for the purchase of firefighting equipment was for the complete renovation and upgrade of fire and gas protection systems at DPR headquarters, Lagos (two adjacent buildings) to safety audit compliance.

In addition, the DPR is looking to spend N33.04 million in 2017, on the procurement, installation and deployment of Wide Area Network (WAN) at its headquarters in Lagos for real time digital communication between headquarter and field offices. In the 2016 Appropriation Act, N69.34 million was earmarked for similar purpose by the DPR.

The DPR also budgeted N180 million to upgrade the National Production Monitoring System (NPMS) to achieve real-time monitoring of oil production in active fields. This was irrespective of the fact that N106.176 million was budgeted for the same purpose in 2016.

The DPR is seeking to spend N30 million, N175 million and N30 million on consultancy services, for the development of tariff model for gas infrastructure; for GIS gas mapping project; and for the development of commercial framework for gas pricing and revenue securitization, respectively.

The DPR is also planning to upgrade and deploy the marginal field licensing digital platform for N50 million and procure a web-based integrated data management system (Petroleum Resources Intelligent System) for access of reliable industry and robust analytics to stakeholders for N80 million.

The post Budget: DPR to spend N828m on travels, software upgrade, others appeared first on Vanguard News.