At least N19.43bn was spent on the maintenance and operations of the Presidential Air Fleet from July 2023 to September 2024, FCNN learnt.
Checks by our correspondent on GovSpend, a civic tech platform that tracks and analyses the Federal Government’s spending, showed that for 2024, the payouts amounted to N13.55bn, representing 66 per cent of the allocations for the fleet in the 2024 fiscal year.
Most disbursements were labelled ‘Forex Transit Funds,’ typically funds allocated for foreign exchange requirements to facilitate international transactions and engagements.
In the context of the Presidential Air Fleet, such funds are used to cover expenses related to operations outside the country, including fuel purchases, maintenance or services in foreign currencies.
“When aircraft on the fleet are abroad, payments are often made in U.S. dollars or another foreign currency to ensure uninterrupted operations,” a government official explained.
In July 2023, N1.52bn was disbursed in two tranches of N846m and N675m for ‘Presidential air fleet forex transit funds.’
The following month, N3.1bn was disbursed in three tranches of N388m, N2bn, and N713m for the same item.
In November of that year, N1.26bn was released to the Presidential Air Fleet naira transit account.
The first overhead for 2024 came in March, where N1.27bn were disbursed twice, amounting to N2.54bn. The transit account received N6.35bn in April, N4.97bn in May and N210m in July.
August saw the highest frequency of transactions, with N5.60bn released in six separate disbursements.
Although these transactions were not clearly labelled, the monies were paid into the Presidential Air Fleet naira transit account, including the N35m transfer made in September.
In late April, the transit account received N5.08bn; this came around the same time the President was on a two-nation tour to the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia.
In April 2023, three jets were put up for sale, but there were no specifics on which.
However, efforts to sell one of the Dassault Falcon 7x and the Hawker 4000 in October 2016 stalled when a potential buyer reduced their initial offer from $24m to $11m.
“What we are getting from this administration is opposite to our expectation. We thought we would have an administration that would be frugal in spending and very meticulous at implementing its budget.
“But what we are getting is an administration that has fallen in love with profligacy; that doesn’t see anything wrong in living big amid a poverty-stricken nation.
“It is a reenactment of the Shagari administration, whereby they bought the biggest Mercedes Benz and made themselves as comfortable as possible without considering how much the masses are suffering.
“So when you look at a Vice President saying he’s not travelling [to Samoa] again because there was a splinter on the windscreen of his private aircraft. Why should that be the case?
“First and foremost, we need to be represented at such an international meeting, where we should be well represented by the first two citizens of this country.
“He abandoned that, which means we would have lost certain representation that we deserve at that forum. Two, money will have been spent on advance parties that went ahead of the Vice President. But he abandoned the journey altogether.”
