Stakeholders across Nigeria’s aviation sector have called on the President Bola Tinubu government to urgently facilitate the payment of over $188.12 million trapped funds of foreign airlines operating in the country.
This is just as the stakeholders tasked the government to look into some of the policies of previous government with particular emphasis on the controversial national carrier’s project, the planned airports’ concession and the compulsory 40 percent contributions of aviation agencies to the Federal Government’s coffers.
Speaking to the Nigerian Tribune, a renowned labour leader, Comrade Olayinka Abioye, stressed the necessity for the Tinubu government to replace some of the policies of the immediate past government, in order to restore sanity to the sector.
Abioye particularly called on the government to waste no time in reversing the last minute concession of the Kano and Abuja airports by the immediate past Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, insisting that the action of the former minister lacked credibility and transparency.
“There is the need for a complete overhaul of activities of the government in the past eight years. Concessioning is a good thing, we have told the minister on what to do with concession. We have the Greenfield option, which is very simple. The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has lands all over Nigerian airports. Bring your investors to tap into those virgin lands and they can do whatever they want there, including the aerotropolis.
“What do you want to concession at the MMA for instance? It was until we dragged him that he now said it is the terminal that he wanted to concession because of infrastructure decays, which any serious CEO can tackle within a year.
“All the problems at the MMA can be addressed within six months. Technology has gone beyond the level we are displaying it in Nigeria. Antennas are no longer big facilities; they are now as small as a ceiling fan. Technology has helped us so much and I am afraid the way we are going, we will continue to fall.”
For the president of Sabre Central and West Africa, Dr Gabriel Olowo, the Tinubu government should place priority on the need to fully pay the outstanding foreign airlines’ trapped funds in the country.
He lamented how the immediate past government failed to remit to the airlines their ticket sales despite all the assurances, a situation which he said led to the suspension of operations by some of the foreign airlines on Nigerian routes.
While calling on the government to shore up investors’ confidence in the country as a means of improving the economy, Olowo said the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos needed total rehabilitation for easy connections and operations by airlines.
He said, “The priority of the new government should be first, to pay all the trapped funds to the foreign airlines to zero if you want that sector to flourish so that all the inventories will come back. This is to prove that we respect international trade. Do you expect them to go and borrow to operate their aircraft into Nigeria?
“Maintenance is due every six months, but do we have maintenance facilities here in the country? What is the capacity of the maintenance? And if I am lifting fuel in Nigeria, what capacity will I lift at a time? So, the government should pay the debts instantly to zero and tell the world that we are ready to shore up investors’ confidence. Nigeria must honour contracts and this accumulation of foreign airlines’ funds is one of the major breaches that we have as of today in the country.
Also, let’s deliver a modern gateway. The international terminal at the Lagos airport is overstretched. It has expired and we need to shut it down, strip it 100 percent and rebuild. The plan for that airport is A,B,C,D, E fingers. We have been parading D and E since 1978, which is 45 years now. What happens to A, B, C fingers? Let’s go and build A, B, C and when that is ready, you can move in there and strip the D and E so that they can join later.”
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