2025 Budget: FG appropriates N106bn to aviation sector

• The Federal Government has appropriated N105,953,496,365 to the aviation industry in the 2025 budget sent to the National Assembly.

This amount of money is an increase from the total budget of N63,317,450,275 in the outgoing year.

The government also planned to refund the sum of N4 billion to the Kebbi State government on the construc­tion of Sir Ahmadu Bello In­ternational Airport, Birnin Kebbi.

Additionally, the govern­ment through the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development further planned to spend N5 billion for the construction of corporate headquarters building and staff accommodation for the staff of the ministry and its agencies. It said the project was “ongoing.”

Further breakdown of the N106 billion appropriation bill for the ministry in 2025 showed that the ministry would have N71,123,368,069; Nigerian Me­teorological Agency (NiMet), N9,819,554,829, and the Ni­gerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, N7,975,364,319.

Others were the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB), N10,035,209,148 in the budget and the Nigerian Air­space Management Agency was allocated N7,000,000,000 in the 2025 budget.

However, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) are still exempted from the annual budgets.

The government proposed to spend N5 billion on the power/energy improvement at Lagos, Abuja and others in 2025. It said the project was “ongoing.”

Again, the ministry said it would spend N5 billion in the development of Aero­space Development in Abuja, stressing that this was already “ongoing.”

Besides, the government planned to pay N1.7 billion as general consultancy for its projects, which it said was “ongoing.” The budget, how­ever, did not expatiate on the general consultancy projects.

The ministry would also expend N5 billion as safety and security critical projects and airport certification na­tionwide.

The project, according to the proposal, included curb­ing of wildlife, Category 3 Airfield Lighting (AFL) and purchase of disabled aircraft recovery equipment, saying that this was already “ongo­ing.”

The government also planned to acquire fire trucks for airports at the sum of N2 billion in 2025.