Thursday, January 02, 2014

Nigerian Aviation Ministry to Spend N32.3 Billion This Year

Aviation ministry to spend N32.3 billion this year

Written by By Wole Shadare
Nigerian Guardian

THE Ministry of Aviation has planned to spend N32.3b to be spent this year, comprising N26b capital projects and over N6b on recurrent expenditure.

There were also minor shake up in the top hierarchy for the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) as the Ministry has relieved Group Capt Adetu (rtd), Technical Assistant to the Director-General of the authority his post.

Also affected are the Regional Manager (Abuja), A. Adeyemi who was said to have been transferred to Calabar, while U. Ugene from Port-Harcourt is to take over from him, all on the order of the Minister.

The breakdown of the budget shows that the Ministry of Aviation will spend at least N800 million on vehicles in 2014, after reportedly splashing N643 million on 54 cars in 2013.

This is coming as the Ministry of Aviation is alleged to have re-introduced the monthly N150 million deductions from the authority; an action that allegedly affected the operations of the agency last year.

The deduction reportedly budgeted for under heading ‘Safety and security’ has now been put under ‘publicity’.

Besides, the Ministry allegedly deducted N15O million from the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency and N300m from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) but all the deductions were stopped in the wake of bulletproof cars scandals, but now resurfaced under another name.

The budget proposal, obtained by The Guardian, shows that the ministry will spend N250 million on eight operational vehicles for the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) and another N500 million to buy some trucks for the agency. Also N50 million will also be spent on staff buses at the ministry.

The budget proposal shows that the Ministry of Aviation will spend over N137 million on trips.

Oduah will also N100 million on consultants for the controversial Aerotropolis, the city-airports some said Nigeria desperately needs.

The ministry, in the proposal, is expected to spend another N20 million on other types of consultancies and another N425 million on consultancy of institutional reforms, legal services and commercial.

General consulting and professional services for the Nigerian Meteorological Agency will gulp over N8 million.

On airport internal access roads, the ministry would spend N200 million, N100 million on Bilateral Air Services Agreements and another N100 million on security gateways on express roads.

The budget proposal also shows that the supervising ministry will spend N100 million on airport toll gates and another N100 million to paint and repair runways.

For the total radar coverage of Nigeria, otherwise known as TRACON, N820 million would be spent on the maintenance agreement for the project’s support services.

Not a few believed that the 54 million Euros radar system has refused to function optimally since it was commissioned few years ago, as its function has become very epileptic with pilots and air traffic controllers complaining about the faulty system.

But NAMA had denied the allegation, stressing that the system was a state of the art capable of aiding seamless air navigation and ensure safety of Nigeria’s airspace.

The Ministry of Aviation will also spend over N13 million on refreshment and meals and another N9 million on publicity.

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