Tension is presently reigning amongst stakeholders across the country’s aviation sector over the $600 million funds belonging to the foreign airlines operating in Nigeria which got trapped in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Some of the key players who have accused the foreign carriers of playing the victims’ card are saying that rather than accuse Nigeria of owing them, it was actually the foreign carriers that have been ripping Nigeria off through the almost-free operations they enjoy in Nigeria without the payment of royalties as stated in the Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASAs) existing between them and Nigeria.
In a sharp response, the President of the Association of Foreign Airlines Representatives in Nigeria (AFARN), Mr Kingsley Nwokoma, has described the key player’s position as a mere distraction from the issue of the trapped funds which he said should be on the front burner.
Nwokoma in a chat with the Nigerian Tribune while reacting to the notion that the foreign carriers were only hiding behind the trapped funds’ story to swindle Nigeria through their refusal to pay royalties, declared that “this is just a distraction instead of addressing the issue on the front burner.
“The question is, which royalties have the foreign airlines been asked to pay and have not been paid for, let them tell us. BASA captures all payments, and frequency agreements. Impossibility to remit the foreign airlines’ funds could affect further investments in Nigeria.”
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According to the foreign airlines’ representative, it is the responsibility of the federal government to fathom a way out even as he insisted: “Nigeria owes the foreign airlines money, they offered services based on laid down rules. Distraction is not what we need now but negotiations.”
The reaction from the foreign airlines’ president is coming after some key players at the weekend argued that Nigeria did not owe the foreign airlines anything.
One of the key players who said the foreign carriers should either wait until Nigeria has the funds to pay them or quit operations as Emirates did, called for an end to what he called the arm-twisting.
Still challenging the foreign carriers, the key player declared: “Would it be fair for them to go and announce that the government owes them? Instead of saying that the government has dishonoured a commitment to exchange their funds at a certain rate, they chose to announce that the government owed them. Is it good? The narrative these airlines are selling to the world is simply uncomplimentary and disturbing.”
While insisting that rather than the claims of the foreign carriers that they were the ones that actually owed the federal government over N1 billion from royalties emanating from the Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA).
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