Bankole re-elected NANTA President

The National President of National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA), Mr Bankole Bernard has promised to consolidate on ongoing strategic projects to carve an enviable threshold for the association and members businesses.

Bernard who was return for the second time to steer the ship of the association said in a interview with journalists after the election, at the 42 annual General Meeting held in Port Harcourt, recently, said his second term is divine to consolidate on all the developmental projects initiated during the first tenure.

The NANTA boss, who has his mind on professionalising membership operation and services, sees the ID Card Scheme as paramount said “to the glory of God, I have been re-elected, and God just want those projects to come to pass. You are aware of our ID card scheme, which is our legacy project, we intend to use it to sanitise our industry and make sure that we capture every single soul working within the aviation and tourism sector.

“We are going to make sure that everything becomes effective this year and make sure that there is full compliance to it before the year run out.

“We are going to be doing a lot of publicity and advocacy in that regard. So i am using this opportunity to solicit for your support when we eventually launch the ID card scheme,

“We will want you to give us the adequate support, so that the public will feel the impact of what the downstream sector of the aviation and tourism sector are doing, so that the government will not have a choice but to reckon with us and give us policies that will support, develop and promote our industry. That is one key legacy project that we must achieve this year.”

“Secondly, as you are equally aware, we do not have a legislative backing that we can call our own. What we have been provided with this while is that we have hiding under the NCAA Act, and we all know how government is when it comes to protecting private sector. That aspect of their law, they will not pay attention to neither will they improve on it.

“He added, “So as it is, in NCAA Act, NANTA was recognised as the umbrella body of all travel agents in Nigeria, but as it were, we are not getting that kind of support from NCAA, so that lead us into getting NANTA Act so that we can get a legislative backing that will help us to become a better institution in our industry.

“We went on to draft our NANTA Act Bill, we have sent it to the house and it has gone through the first reading and by the grace of God the second reading will be coming up in May and after that, it will be pushed to the house committee that will deliberate on it and call for public hearing.

Bernard who is optimistic about their move to build a coordinated and professionally aligned body said “By the time that is done, hopefully, we are looking at the last quarter of this year or first quarter of 2019, we will have our NANTA Act that will give us the opportunity to regulate our industry to a very large extent.

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“Your see because there is no rules things are been taken for granted, to a lot of people we don’t know what General Sales Agent (GSA) is or how it has been operating in Nigeria. It is not the way it is done in our countries. GSA is General Sales Agent for airlines to be fully represented by travel agency.

He explained,”If you go to Dubai, there is no airline that is not an origin of Dubai that is operating with their full name. For instance, British Airways in Dubai is not BA; they are operating under a GSA. So their operation is very transparent and the relevant taxes are been paid.

“But unfortunately, in this part of the world, we don’t have sure kind of thing, and so we just allow them and winners take all is what we have seen around but by the time the law is ready it is going to help us in that regards. By the time we work on this two things, I am sure our industry will not be the same again.

Speaking on building relationships, the president of NANTA said “the third thing we have been able to do and which we intend to take to the next level is the fact that we have built a robust relationship with IATA.

“IATA now uses NANTA as an example to other associations around the continents and the world, telling them that if they can work the way NANTA is working, they (other international associations) will achieve a lot.

“The issue of defaults or travelling agencies, not leaving up to expectations will become the things of the past. With the new way we are working with IATA, we intend to strengthen things more”

He explained “we want to see better growth for our members, we want to see clarity of purpose with our members, and we want to see IATA working more closely with us that they might even go to the extent of developing human capacity in Nigeria as it is done in other countries.”