The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika has come under fire for commissioning only 10 fire fighting vehicles bought with a huge sum of 12 billion naira.
Sirika had disclosed in a tweet on Sunday that he had just commissioned ten firefighting trucks worth N12bn.
The Minister’s tweet was met mixed reactions from the public.
While some commended the move describing it step towards improving safety and emergency response at airports across the country, others have raised concerns about the cost of the vehicles and whether they are truly necessary.
He wrote, “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.”
Reacting to the post, many expressed concern that the cost of the vehicles were over-bloated.
Omoyele Sowere 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! #RevolutionNow.”
Another tweep, @n6oflife6, said,” The cleaning out these people are doing before leaving office. Heaven helps whoever enters next. You literally spent 30 million United States Dollars on 10 fire trucks. even if they were made by Bugatti and Lamborghini @officialEFCC please check.”
Similarly, @yuteoflondon wrote: spent tlhe last hours researching how much fire trucks cost, the expensive high-end trucks cost $650,000 (which Nigeria never gets the best, I can bet these are used trucks too).
“NYC firefighting trucks cost $550k each, what truck did you buy for $2.8m You sir and your cohorts are thieves. Give the spec of this truck and what makes it N1.2B each. the ridiculous broad daylight robbery of our coffers.”
Another Twitter user @aisosaigiebor, said,” This is absolute madness. How can you buy 10 fire trucks for 12bn Naira @1.2bn each?
Fire trucks don’t work well without a direct source of water which we don’t have in most places. This looks like a China truck and from my find, the one that holds 12000 litres is about 80,000$. Why would you pay 1.2bn Naira for one truck? This is insane.”
