The Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Congress have kicked against the ₦55 billion allocated in the 2025 budget for the maintenance of the presidential fleet.
This is contained in the 2025 Appropriation Bill sent to the National Assembly for approval.
If approved by the lawmakers, over ₦55.5 billion will be spent on total overhauling of three aircraft engines in the presidential fleet, including fuelling, fumigation, air navigation, cleaning, and other maintenance of the presidential fleet.
The entire aviation ministry’s 2025 budget stands at ₦105,953,496,365, The PUNCH understands.
The budget, which was scrutinised by our correspondent, showed that the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development has ₦71,123,368,069; the Nigerian Meteorological Agency gets ₦9,819,554,829, while ₦7,975,364,319 goes to the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria.
Others are the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau, with ₦10,035,209,148, and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, which was allocated ₦7,000,000,000.
Meanwhile, at least ₦19.43 billion was spent on the maintenance and operations of the Presidential Air Fleet from July 2023 to September 2024, The PUNCH gathered.
Checks by our correspondent on GovSpend, a civic tech platform that tracks and analyses the Federal Government’s spending, showed that the payouts amounted to ₦13.55 billion in 2024, representing 66 per cent of the allocations for the fleet in the fiscal year.
The yet-to-be-passed budget showed that ₦8,646,336,653 bn was earmarked for the repair of air navigational equipment, while ₦5,514,000,000 was set aside for an engine overhaul of one of the aircraft in the presidential fleet with the registration number 5N-FGW.
The document further stated that two other engines will be overhauled with the sum of ₦3,132,336.65.
The government also planned to spend ₦8,646,336,653 on air navigational equipment, with ₦1,550,000,000 proposed for aircraft fuel cost in 2025 and another ₦1,255,700,000 for aircraft maintenance in the presidential fleet, among others.
Besides, the sum of ₦149,000,000 was appropriated for security operations (overhead) and an additional ₦7,500,000 for cleaning and fumigation services for the presidential fleet.
The sum of ₦311,145,300 was set aside for insurance premiums for aircraft.
However, The PUNCH understood that this huge sum may be handled by foreign insurance companies such as the United States and the United Kingdom, since local insurance companies don’t have the capacity to insure aircraft, particularly airbuses.
