Officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) spend nearly N 1 billion as Duty Tour Allowance (DTA) shuttling the organisation’s offices in Abuja and Lagos every year.
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, disclosed this in an interview on Channels Television.
The minister had previously pegged the amount expended by the officials on DTA at N500 million annually, but in the latest interview, he said that he had not yet been briefed of the expenses for last year when he granted that interview.
“When I did my Channels TV interview yesterday, I had not been briefed as to the amount FAAN spent last year alone on DTA (Duty Tour Allowance) for the principal officers who travelled back and forth from Lagos to Abuja almost on a daily basis. The amount came up to N493,678,620.37. This is aside from the air tickets which I mentioned that amounted to N451, 058,950.09.
“So, in total, because of insistence on naming Abuja as the headquarters of FAAN (when there are no offices in Abuja to accommodate all the principal officers) FAAN spent close to N1 billion in one year,” he said.
Keyamo further said there’ll be no going back on the relocation of the headquarters of FAAN from Abuja to Lagos.
The minister also disclosed that he had proposed a N40 billion intervention fund to President Bola Tinubu for enhancing airport operations in the country.
The fund, when released, would be allocated to the implementation of the Safe Tower project, procurement of DVOR (Doppler VHF Omni Direction Range) equipment in airports across the country, procurement of modern ILS (Instrument Landing System) for the five international airports and some other airports, enhancement of the total radar coverage of Nigeria (TRACON) for airspace safety and security.
Other equipment to be procured from the money are landing and navigation equipment as well as Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) for airports nationwide.
