Date Published: 03/28/10

N64 Billion Contract: Senate suspect fraud, summons FAAN Consultant

Senator David Mark, Senate President

The Senate Committee on Aviation has picked hole in the controversial N64 Billion contract for a second runway at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, even as it ordered the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN to come with the project consultants on April 19, 2010 and defend the project. .

The Senator Anyim Ude-led Committee which put the Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, Mr. Richard Aisuebeogun on the spot during the defense of the 2010 Internally Generated Revenue by the aviation parastatals, asked him to justify why the country should spend such whopping amount on a second runway.

The Committee said information at its disposal indicated that similar projects in India, Helsinki, Finland and even Gombe State cost less.

“You mean that it’s costing Nigeria over N63 billion to do a runway, not a new airport? You can come to us with the details later, but we want you to justify why Nigeria should spend about N64 billion, not for a brand new airport; against the background report that it cost 6.99 billion in Djibouti , even Gombe here, N7.5 billion, India, Helsinki 2.14 billion… Tell us why Nigeria should spend this much,” Senator Anyim Ude queried.

Responding, the Chief executive of FAAN said the project was justifiable, having been conceived out of a very strong necessity. He said the existing runway built 28 years ago had developed ‘alligator cracks’ and could not take the intensive traffic density. He explained that the project was based on the concept of design and construct.

According to Mr. Aisuebeogun, expert report from their consultants supported the project. “The figure is justifiable. We actually used a renowned consultant for the pre and post consulting work of this runway…We have the Due Process Certificate. It’s absolutely justifiable,” he maintained.

The FAAN boss, however, requested to be given a new date to appear before the Committee with prepared documents.

Meanwhile, the Committee has asked the aviation parastatals and agencies to repackage their Internally Generated Revenue submissions for the year to include executive summaries, in order to make them easy to understand. Senator Ude advised them to desist from the usual format “where you load us with big grammar and figures”.

He said the new format should show the capital projects approved for them in 2009; how many of them were completed; at how much? How many are on-going? How many have not taken-off and why?

The Committee Chairman also directed the agencies to relate the facts of 2009 to what they wanted the Committee to approve for them this year.