By Matthew Tabe
The Nigerian Presidential Air Fleet (PAF), has lamented that the unit is poorly funded through annual budgetary allocations, a development it said was affecting its operations.
Commander of the Fleet, Air Vice Marshall A. Y. Abdulahi, represented by the Fleet Operation Officer, Air Commodore Ahmed Dari, made the disclosure to the House of Representatives Committee on National Security and Intelligence on Thursday during an oversight visit to its base.
He told the committee that though the Fleet had proposed a total budget of N15.522 billion for the 2023 fiscal year, what was presented to the National Assembly for it in the Appropriation Bill had a shortfall of N7.450 billion, adding that there was need for an upward review in order to meet its operational demands.
While stating that over 64 percent of the Fleet’s overhead budget goes into financing aircrafts maintenance, he said even after attention of the National Assembly was drawn to the shortfalls, “unfortunately, no additional fund is provided”, compelling the Fleet to carry out such maintenances on credit with the understanding of the companies involved.
“Consequently, maintenance is affected. We have to carry out credit-based maintenance on few of the aircrafts, and moved the rest to 2023. For successive years, the Fleet has been grossly underfunded. Debts from preceding years are always carried over, and they are mostly owed to service providers overseas”, he stated.
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According to him, the maintenance had to be carried out to meet the air worthiness requirements, and pleaded assistance of the committee for an upward review of the budget.
Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Ibrahim Shaaban, earlier in his remarks said they were there “on the principle of accountable governance”, with a mission to review the agency’s 2021 and 2022 budget performance, as work is being tidied up on the 2023 budget, noting that the panel was not unaware of the challenges being faced by the Fleet.