Sirika Under Fire For Spending N12bn On Ten Firefighting Trucks
The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika has been met with mixed reactions from the public for spending a whopping sum of N12 billion to acquire 10 firefighting trucks in Nigeria Airports.
Sirika Under Fire For Spending N12bn On Ten Firefighting Trucks
Sirika disclosed on Sunday that he commissioned ten firefighting trucks for the Federal Airports Authority (FAAN).
In his post through Twitter, a microblogging site, Sirika revealed that FAAN had not bought firefighting trucks in 15 years.
“Just commissioned 10 Firefighting trucks, the 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”, the Minister posted.
However, in a swift response to Sirika’s post, Nigerians said spending N12 billion on Ten firefighting trucks is a fraud.
“How would Ten fighting trucks cost N12 billion?” Nigerians queried.
According to the Presidential Candidate of the African Action Congress and an activist, Omoyole Sowore, the Minister and President Muhammadu Buhari had finished Nigeria.
In his tweet, he 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!”.
Another Twitter user @yuteoflondon, said,
” spent the 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.”
