Nigeria ready for ICAO audit — DG NCAA

The Director-General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority ( NCAA), Captain Musa Nuhu has declared that Nigeria was ready for the coming audit of the country’s aviation sector.

The country is expected to undergo the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) Continuous Monitoring Approach (CMA) which will deal with the implementation of the eight critical elements slated for the first quarter of 2022.

Speaking to aviation journalists in Lagos, Nuhu said it was wrong for someone to say the country was not ready for something they could barely tell apart from stressing that the issues presented as information were exclusive and not part of the forthcoming audit.

While explaining that ICAO Annex 9 was on facilitation, the DG said Annex 17 contained Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) concerned with the security of international air transport regularly amended to address the evolving threat.

He however, described the USOAP audit  as an activity during which ICAO assesses the effective implementation of the critical elements (CEs) of a safety oversight system and conducts a systematic and objective review of a State’s safety oversight system to verify the status of its compliance with the provisions of ICAO Convention.

Emphasising that security had its own separate audit, Nuhu added that Nigeria performed well in the last security audit conducted in the sector by ICAO, citing how in the last ICAO Security Audit (USOAP-CMA) of Nigeria on the Effective Implementation (EI), Nigeria Scored 96.4 per cent and the country received ICAO Council President Award Certificate for its performance.

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Dropping the hint that the USOAP-CMA Audit (security audit) was now scheduled for the third quarter of 2022, the DG said that NCAA’s aspirational Effective Implementation (EI) score for the USOAP-CMA Audit was 90 per cent even as he insisted that all hands were on the deck to ensure this becomes a reality.

‘NCAA will step up its oversight function and collaboration with all relevant stakeholders to ensure continued improvement in aviation security and facilitation. Security Audit is different from a safety audit.

“What we are doing now is quite different from security audit and it’s not related to facilitation. I understand facilitation is good for passengers, but, it has nothing to do with the current audit.

“The last security audit we had, Nigeria scored 96.4 per cent and because of this performance, Nigeria received ICAO Council President Award Certificate for its performance.”

Admitting that there were some teething challenges that needed fixing in the country’s aviation sector, Nuhu stated “Yes, I accept we have some challenges in the industry, just like in the other countries around the world.

However, to say Nigeria is not ready for audit is a misnomer. Someone is saying we are not ready for two issues that are not part of the forthcoming audit. I think that is wrong.”