FG BUDGET 27BN FOR 3 THUNDER JET AGAINST INSURGENCY

FG BUDGET 27BN FOR 3 THUNDER JET AGAINST INSURGENCY

•To complete payment for 2 Augusta helicopters with N800m

•Special Forces School set for takeoff in Buni Yadi this year

•NIPSS to buy 2 Toyota cars for N72m

•Immigration Services earmarks N205m for fuel, N28m for cooking gas

ABUJA—The Federal Government plans to spend at least N27 billion in the 2019 budget on the acquisition of three Thunder aircraft and support equipment for its troops fighting insurgency and banditry in many parts of the country.

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The government has also made generous allocations to the armed forces to enable them to tackle a rising wave of security challenges facing the nation, a few weeks to the general elections. Under the arrangement, the Nigerian Army is allocated N232.4 billion, Nigerian Air Force, N117.3 billion and the Nigerian Navy, N103.6 billion for both recurrent and capital programmes for the year.

Details of the allocations are contained in the 2019 budget breakdown, which Vanguard obtained last Monday. According to the fiscal document, the federal government also intends to acquire an unmanned aerial vehicle with the sum of N666.7 million and allocate another N1 billion for the purchase of troop carriers for the military.

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Also, as part of the effort to contain the insurgency in the Northeast, the sum of N295 million has been set aside for the take-off of a Special Forces Training School in Bunu Yadi, Yobe State, where insurgents roasted school boys in their dormitory some years ago.

Beyond the military expenditure, the budget breakdown also showed allocations to departments, agencies, and agencies of government. For instance, the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies has been allocated the sum of N72 million for the purchase of two Toyota Camry cars for ‘project inspection’, each costing N36 million.

Similarly, the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, plans to spend N73.5 million within the year for the purchase of ‘foodstuff and catering supplies’.
Also, the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, also wants to use the sum of N80 million for ‘foodstuff and catering supplies’ but no details of what that would be involved were given in the document. The document equally indicated that the Nigeria Press Council, NPC, will spend N28 million for ‘Media Reportage of Electoral Process’ without any explanations.

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The document also captured the sum of N1.5 billion, N1.8 billion and N3 billion respectively to be coughed out by the Nigeria Immigration Service, Nigeria Prison Service, and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps as contributions to the National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS, this year.