Fed Govt votes N792m to refurbish aircraft

THE Federal Government is to spend N792 million to upgrade one of the aircraft in the Presidential Air Fleet (PAF), details of this year’s Appropriation Bill have shown.

Another N607 million will be disbursed on the ongoing “phased replacement of vehicles, spare parts and tyres in the Presidency, CVU (Common Vehicle Unit), security/police escort and State House operational fleets”.

According to the 2019 budgetary proposal submitted to the National Assembly, the N792, 000, 000 mandatory upgrade and installation of live TV and internet service is for the presidential jet identified as BBJ (5N-FGT).

The 5N-FGT Boeing 737-700 is registered to the Government of Nigeria and it is a Boeing Business Jet aircraft with some external features of a commercial aircraft, but essentially a private jet.

Also, the presidential air fleet is asking for N50 million to carry out a “compliance with mandatory upgrade and installation of internet service on a second presidential aircraft, the G550 (5N-FGW), which has 5N-FGW (Nigerian Air Force) Gulfstream G550 as its registration details”.

Another N650, 000,000 was voted for the mandatory upgrades of the other aircraft in the PAF. The details of the aircraft scheduled for refurbishment were not specified.

The PAF is domiciled in the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Department of State Security (DSS), thereby ensuring an extremely high level of security cover.

The Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) is seeking approval for a N6, 748,846,483 as its budget proposal for this year, even as other government agencies plan television-related initiatives to boost their visibility.

The National Action Committee On Aids (NACA) applied for approval to spend N20 million on its media activities on radio and television, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) aims to spend N40 million on radio and television jingles  and the Federal Ministry of Science & Technology targets expenditure of N94 million on the “Establishment of a Science, Technology and Innovation Television Station in Abuja”.

In the Budget 2019 proposals, anti-corruption and accountability agencies are to receive various allocations for recurrent and capital expenditures.

About N3.1 billion has been earmarked for the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, N1 billion for the Code of Conduct Tribunal, N110 billion for the Judiciary and N5.9 billion for the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

The EFCC’s N22 billion vote covers various projects, including the expansion of the agency’s detention facilities to accommodate those under interrogation.

It was learnt that N2, 617,966 will be spent to ensure the completion of the EFCC detention facility in Maiduguri. The completion of the detention facility in Gombe will gulp N2, 094,373 and N3, 141,559 will be disbursed on the ongoing expansion of the commission’s cell in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.