Stella Oduah To Spend N800m On Vehicles in 2014

Nigeria’s embattled Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Oduah, will spend at least N800 million on vehicles in 2014, after splashing N643 million on 54 vehicles in 2013, her budget proposal shows. The budget proposal, obtained by P.M.NEWS, shows that Oduah will spend N250 million on eight operational vehicles for the Accident Investigation Bureau, AIB, a small agency of the ministry with personnel cost estimated at N150 million yearly. The budget provision shows each vehicle will cost N30.125million. Many of the SUV brands available in the Nigerian market sell between N5m and N15m. The minister, who appears to be a car freak will also shell another N500 million to buy a truck for the agency. And in her main ministry, She will spend another N50 million on staff buses. The budget proposal shows that the Ministry of Aviation will spend over N137 million on foreign trips. Oduah will also spend N100 million on her controversial Aerotropolis Consultants, the city-airports she claims Nigeria desperately needs. She will then 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, Oduah would spend N200 million and another N100 million on Bilateral Air Services Agreements. She will also spend N100 million on security gateways on express roads. The budget proposal shows that Oduah will also spend N100 million on airport toll gates and another N100 million to paint and repair runways. Oduah will also equally N820 million on the maintenance agreement for the TRACON support services. The Ministry of Aviation will spend over N13 million on refreshment and meals and another N9 on publicity. In all the ministry has earmarked N26 billion for capital expenditure, N18 billion out of which will go into her pet project of ‘remodelling the country’s airports’. Outside of this, she also plans to spend N250 million to plant flowers in the country’s main airports in Port Harcourt, Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Enugu. Her recurrent budget is estimated at N6 billion making the total budget of the ministry to be N32.3 billion.