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Fuel Subsidy Removal Unlocks $500m Aviation Infrastructure Funding — Keyamo
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, says the removal of fuel subsidy enabled the Tinubu administration to raise about $500m for aviation infrastructure, including the reconstruction of the Lagos airport.
Keyamo stated this on Monday at the 67th anniversary of Aero Contractors in Lagos, while responding to a question on the status of aviation in the Renewed Hope Agenda.
According to him, the funds were not borrowed but made possible by improved liquidity and growth in foreign reserves.
“The President raised $500m to rebuild the Lagos airport. Not money borrowed, because we were able to do what we should do. Our liquidity rose. Our foreign reserves also rose from $3bn to $56bn now. And investors are rushing into the country because they now see the country as viable,” he said.
The minister said macroeconomic stability was crucial to attracting foreign investment needed for jobs and infrastructure, dismissing criticisms that stronger reserves have not translated to relief for households facing rising costs of food and transport.
“People say, ‘What will foreign reserves do for the economy? People are hungry.’ You know, this is the cheap talk they engage in to play on cheap sentiment,” he said.
He added that jobs are created through investment and infrastructure, not government pronouncements.
“Jobs don’t fall from heaven; jobs come as a result of either the infrastructure you are building or investments,” he said.
Keyamo said the Lagos airport project is part of a broader upgrade of aviation infrastructure, adding that President Bola Tinubu has also approved the return of the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, to construct the long-delayed second runway.
He recalled that the runway project was stalled years ago when its N45bn cost estimate faced resistance.
“The National Assembly fought that project because they said that N45bn was too much to spend on the second runway. The Committee on Aviation at that time all rested; an embargo was put on it. We could not raise N45bn at that time to build the second runway. Fifteen years later, or maybe 20 years later, it is now costing us nearly N500bn,” he said.
Earlier, the Managing Director of Aero Contractors said aviation must be placed at the centre of Nigeria’s economic development agenda as a critical enabler of trade, tourism, employment and investment.
