The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, disclosed on Sunday that his ministry spent N12 billion to acquire 10 firefighting trucks.
Sirika disclosed on Sunday via a post on his Twitter account.
In the post Sirika said he commissioned ten firefighting trucks for the Federal Airports Authority, FAAN.
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He further noted that the last time the FAAN bought new trucks was 15 years ago.
“Just commissioned 10 Firefighting trucks, 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,” Sirika tweeted.
The N12 billion paid to acquire the trucks means Sirika’s ministry used N1.2 billion to buy each of the trucks that are mostly used in Africa and Arab countries.
However, the cost of the firefighting trucks has led to criticism from some Nigerians.
Reacting to Sirika’s post, some said one truck shouldn’t cost as much as N1 billion.
According to a lawyer with username, @MikeInyeneesq, the Twitter user wrote: “Last minute clearing of Government funds. Datti was right, inflated government contract is another form of corruption. 12Bn naira should be able to build you a firefighting vehicle plant.”
Another Nigerian, with username, @bellotabdullahi, said: “10 or 100? Are they flying firefighting trucks? Do they foresee and forestall accidents? N1.2Bn per truck?! I want to believe is a typo if not pls @officialEFCC beam your searchlight here!”
Also commenting on the truck’s cost is a user with the account, @Valchekwas
He 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).
