NAMA sensitises airline operators to cashless payment

In a bid to ensure total compliance to the presidential directive on the implementation of Treasury Single Account (TSA), the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), has held a sensitisation forum with agents and representatives of operators of non-scheduled flights in the country on the imperative of the TSA regime of the Buhari administration.

Militants, Boko Haram frustrated my administration ― Buhari

The event which took place at NAMA headquarters in Lagos was targeted among other things at dialoguing with operators and fashioning out ways to address their concerns arising from the process of adjusting to the new cashless payment system since it came into operation last year.

Speaking at the event, the Managing Director of NAMA, Captain Fola Akinkuotu said there was no going back on the Federal Government’s cashless policy which he said was an executive pronouncement that demanded total compliance from all stakeholders.

While appealing to non-scheduled operators to embrace the new initiative as the entire world is going cashless, he  assured them that the new system would yield positive results that would benefit the entire industry.

His words: “This is an innovation that would not only improve and sanitise the nation’s financial system, but also ensure accountability and transparency in the long run. If we desire an aviation industry that is globally competitive, we have to imbibe global best practices.”

In the same vein, commenting on behalf of the non-scheduled operators in attendance, the Managing Director of Sunrise International Air Support Ltd, Mr Sunny Ebisue, expressed gratitude to NAMA for organising such a forum, saying that the event had shed more light on some of the grey areas that attended the new payment system. He, however, called on the agency to sustain such interaction with operators in order to keep them abreast with new developments.

The Federal Government in a circular from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation dated November 7, 2018 had issued a final warning to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and other government entities to desist from maintaining accounts with DMBs without approval from the President, saying that all affected Federal Government owned and controlled MDAs and other entities must close all remaining DMB accounts, whether in local or foreign currency and transfer the balances to the individual TSA sub-account of the entity domiciled at the CBN.

As part of the resolutions made at the end of the meeting, operators or their representatives are to each open and fund a domiciliary account with which to effect all financial transactions with NAMA through monetary transfers to the agency’s sub-account with the CBN using a smart phone.

On the other hand a representative can open a domiciliary account, transfer an amount of foreign currency in advance into NAMA account at CBN to enable the agency debit that balance anytime the operator needs the agency’s services.