There is actually more than meets the eye in the remodeling claims and counter claims as it would be recalled that the committees on Aviation of the National Assembly alleged that debts incurred by the Ministry of Aviation in the course of terminal remodeling and building of perishable cargo terminals came to a whooping N174bn.
On two different occasions the senate committee on aviation and their House Representatives counterparts came down heavily on the ministry of aviation and the various agencies over issues of debts (about N174 billion) owed to contractors and large scale fraud believed to have been committed under the airport remodeling programme.
It is on note that Senator Hope Uzodinma had observed that “This is not within the budget; they did not carry us along and that is why it is not in the budget. We queried how they over-committed government without prior approval.” He also added further that his committee is not disposed to abandoning the projects (debts), but another plan that would give all the parties involved a kind of soft landing. He hinted that a committee will be set by the aviation ministry to look at those projects and then re-prioritize them. He then accused the former minster, Princess Stella Oduah, and the ministry of aviation of not “allowing the National Assembly to play its own role.”
More so, the issue of the $500 million loan from China, which was taken for the construction of four new international airport terminals in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano, shocked the senators as that despite the existence of the loan, the ministry still went ahead to incur huge debts.
“The federal government through the ministry of aviation also had a counterpart funding responsibility of $100 million. That I am aware of and all the projects have no reason not to be completed within the record time,” Senator Uzodinma said.
Meanwhile in a twist, a new report emerged stating that the debt which was incurred due to the airports remodeling projects may have been inflated by N26 billion.
The Senate Committee on Aviation had stated that the debt incurred by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) was N174 billion, disclosing that funds for the projects were released in three tranches as the contract for the projects are also in three phases.
However, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) explained how the money was disbursed to the contractors, the actual amount for the project and the debt. FAAN in its defence in a document explained that the “debts accruing from the remodeling of airport projects was inflated by N26bn from the actual debts of N148bn to N174bn. It added that “the projects were in three phases. The contract value of phase one is N12.81bn, total amount already paid is N11.22bn, while there is still an outstanding balance of N1.58bn.
“For the phase two, the contract value is put at N93.43bn, while the total amount disbursed to the contractors is N53.97bn, leaving a balance of the N39.50bn. The third phase of the projects, which is still at infant stage, has contract value of N63.02bn with N4.21bn as total amount already paid, while N58.81bn is outstanding. “The sub-total of the debts therefore is N99.85bn, which when added to the debts already approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) at N48.37bn brings total outstanding debts to N148.23bn. This amount from FAAN differs from the N174bn that was declared by the Senate Committee on aviation by about N26bn,” FAAN claimed.
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