The federal executive council (FEC) has approved the sum of N3.4 billion as consultancy fee for the construction of a second runway at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja and others.
This was disclosed by the presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, on Wednesday, after the FEC meeting presided by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.
The airports are Murtala Mohammed (Lagos), Nnamdi Azikiwe (Abuja), Mallam Aminu Kano (Kano), Port Harcourt, Owerri, Benin, Enugu, Maiduguri, Yola, Kaduna, Calabar, Ilorin, Sokoto, Ibadan, Jos, Akure, and Katsina.
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Shehu said the council also approved N449.9 million for the engagement of consultants for the development of a master plan for 17 airports in Nigeria.
FEC had approved N92.123 billion for the construction of the second runway in March last year.
The consultancy fund approval, which comes as President Muhammadu Buhari seeks the approval of lawmakers for a fresh $800 million loan from the World Bank, has stirred backlash. The federal government says the loan will be distributed to poor and vulnerable Nigerians across the country to ameliorate the impact of the proposed fuel subsidy removal.
The federal government is being criticized for lavish spending in the face scarcity that has heightened the country’s public debt profile to near unsustainable degree.
On Wednesday, the Budget Office raised alarm over Nigeria’s rising debt, saying it has put the country in a limited borrowing space due to its poor debt-to-revenue ratio, which spells trouble.
The situation was compounded by the crisis in the oil sector, which has limited revenue generation to the federal government’s purse. The crisis, which centers on low crude oil price and insufficient oil output owing to theft, saw Nigeria depending mainly on revenue from the non-oil sector and borrowing to fund its budgets.
Nigeria’s Crude oil output as of April 2023 has fallen to just 998,602 bpd, according to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
Against this backdrop, spending as much as N3.4 billion on consultancy is seen as a display of recklessness at a time that is most-required frugality…
Financial expert, Kalu Aja, said the FEC’s decision shows that “Nigeria has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.”
Meanwhile, the presidential spokesperson said FEC also approved N90 billion for the completion of various roads totaling over N125 billion.
According to Shehu, over N33 billion was approved for the completion of some major roads in Borno, Adamawa, Kogi, Delta, Ondo, Ogun, and Benue states.
He noted that N10.3 billion was approved for the construction of a multi-storey office complex of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) in Lagos.
Shehu said the council also approved the establishment of the National Institute for Domestic Security at Irogbo-Ilesa, Osun state, which had a budgetary provision of N285 million in 2022 and N360 million in 2023.