Senate Denies Plans To Purchase 108 Land Cruiser SUV

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Senate Services, Senator Ibrahim Gobir, on Tuesday debunked reports that the Senate has purchase 108‎ Jeeps.
Rather, Gobir said the Senate only bought 36 Land Cruiser Jeep VXR, which are meant for oversight functions.
Gobir, while addressing journalists, revealed that each vehicle cost the Senate about N36.5 million.
This is in addition to the 10 per cent tax for the vehicles as luxury item.
The showroom price of the vehicle is about N31 million.
Goober said: “First, I would like to say that thew issue that we bought 108 cars is totally wrong.
“It is not correct.
“We bought 36 cars.
“These 36 cars were bought because each senator in each state is either a Chairman or a Vice Chairman and we gave one car to each state to share among themselves as utility car.
“So we don’t have money to buy 108 cars.
“Then the issue of the cost of the car, the showroom price, the cost of the car is N36.5 million and we are surprised.
“The car we bought is Land Cruiser VXR V8 not V6.
“Therefore, the showroom price is about N31 million minimum and then when you put 10 per cent tax, it becomes N36.5 million.
“In fact, you can go to the internet and download it.
“It is very simple.
“We can give you the website.
“We have several items we downloaded from the internet.
“You can see them.
“This particular car costs about $90,000 and by the time you multiply that you will have about N28.8 million.
“So when you add tax, you will end up with about N37 million.
“So I think what we have purchased the car for is very reasonable.”
When Gobir was questioned about the car loan collected by the senators, Gobir said: “Let me tell you, the car loan that we were given, we have not taken.
“Hear it from me, we did not take the car loan.
“No senator was given car loan we did not take it.”
Responding on the issue of purchasing cars without appropriation, Gobir said: “On the issue of buying cars without appropriation is totally wrong because this has been appropriated in the 2015 Budget.
“So we used what we have in the 2015 Budget to buy the 36 cars so that it can go round to each state.”