The Nigerian government has been under strong criticism for spending a whooping N12 billion to purchase 10 firefighting trucks at a time when the country needs prudence and effective management of scarce resources.
The Minister of Aviation, Hadid Sirika broke the information he spent the sum of 12 billion Naira to acquire 10 firefighting trucks in Nigeria Airports.
Sirika disclosed on Sunday, April 2, that he commissioned ten firefighting trucks for the Federal Airports Authority, FAAN.
In his post shared on Twitter, Sirika revealed that FAAN had not bought firefighting trucks in 15 years.
He tweeted: “Just commissioned 10 Firefighting trucks, the total cost of over 12Bn Naira. More to come in due course. Safety has been the Buhari focus in Aviation, since 2015. Hitherto FAAN has not bought new trucks in 15 years.”
All economic indices towards the Nigerian economic state are gloomy – the increasing inflation rate, interest rate, unemployment rate, huge debt profile, etc.
“Fire Truck that is available at $59,800 (N27.5m at the official rate) is what Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika is paying N1.2bn for. Preposterously devouring our meager resources”, Jack Obiyan wrote Facebook.
According to the Presidential Candidate of the African Action Congress and an activist, Omoyole Sowore, the Minister and President Muhammadu Buhari had finished Nigeria.
In his tweet, he said: “Wow! You mean you bought a single fire engine for over $2 million each. Wonders shall never cease. You and @mbuhari really finished Nigeria!”.
Another Twitter user wrote: “I spent the last hours researching how much fire trucks cost; the expensive high-end trucks cost $650,000 (which Nigeria never gets the best of, I can bet these are used trucks too).”
