Anambra International Airport: A Rewarding Study In Financial Prudence

Nigeria - Since the test-landing of two commercial aircraft belonging to Air Peace and a corporate jet belonging to the chairman of the Anambra State Investment Promotion and Protection Agency, Ike Chioke, at Anambra International Cargo/Passenger

Airport on Friday, April 30, 2021, the whole nation has been ecstatic about the incredible progress at Nigeria’s most modern airport.

Apart from being the first time jet planes have ever landed in Anambra State, the airport has seized the national imagination on account of its being built up to global standards in just 15 months without a loan from any institution anywhere in the world. This is a very impressive record anywhere.

It is regrettable; however, that this stupendous accomplishment by the people and Government of Anambra State has not gone down well with a coterie of politically exposed persons who are determined to ruin their own state, all in the name of the gubernatorial vote in the state which will hold on November 6, 2021. The shadowy characters have alleged, for instance, that a whopping two billion dollars ($2bn) has been spent on the airport which has yet to be completed.

Two billion dollars ($2bn) translates to nine hundred and sixty billion naira (N960bn), almost a trillion naira (N1tr). This amount is far in excess of the combination of Anambra State budgets in almost the last 10 years. That is, the sum of current and recurrent expenditures since 2001! This is obviously taking fiction too far. It is preposterous.

The peddlers of this rumour are not intelligent. The size of the 2021 budget is one hundred and forty thousand naira (N140bn), the biggest in our state’s history, while the size of the 2020 budget was one hundred and thirty seven billion naira (N137bn).

The budgetary provision for the airport in the 2020 budget was eight billion naira (N8 billion). And the provision in the 2021 budget is fifty million naira (N50m). The 2021 financial year is far from gone and the airport is still not completed. Therefore, the budgetary provision for this year is not yet exhausted. Even if the total amount for the airport is added to that of last year, it will come to eight billion and fifty million naira. It has to be noted that there are