Onwuka Nzeshi
3 December 2008
Abuja — Following huge backlog of debts owed various agencies and parastatals in the Nigerian Aviation industry, the House Committee on Aviation has directed all defaulting local and international airlines, concessioneers and aviation handling companies to clear their debts within 30 days or risk being barred from operating at the airports.
Chairman, House Committee on Aviation, Honourable Bethel Amadi, who handed down the ultimatum said it will expire on January 2, 2009.According to Amadi, The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigerian Airspace Management Authority (NAMA) and Nigerian Civil Authority (NCAA) were being owed huge sums of money over the last five years, a situation that has tended to hamper the smooth operations of the agencies.
He frowned at the deplorable state of the infrastructure at the airports across the country and balmed the situation on the denial of these agencies of revenues that should accrue from aircraft landing charges, aircraft parking charges and passenger service charges. He said that while the local and international airlines and handling companies collect sundry charges from passengers, they have contnued to evade remitting same to the relevant agencies."The current state of indebtedness of parastatals and MDAs in the aviation sector by various service companies in the sector is totally unacceptable and condemnable. The idea of some airlines, oil companies, concessionaires and service companies utilising the facilities and services of these parastatals for profit without fulfilling their financial obligations to these parastatals cannot be allowed to continue.It is sad that some of these debts are service charges collected from passengers on behalf of these parastatals and not remitted to the parastatals."For FAAN alone, we are talking about N6 billion. The breakdown showed that active international airlines that are currently operating in our country are owing FAAN over N1.5 billion and of course the concessionaires who rent offices and facilities at the airports are owing over N2.5 billion yet they arre still carrying on business.Even the handling companies at the airports are owing FAAN over N636 million alone and they are still operating", he said.
He added that "the important thing is that these debts are crippling the abilities of these agencies and parastatals to render the service they ought to render and the ability to pay for the required improvement for it to remain in that sector"."There has been a lot infrastructure decay and for many years a lot of those equipment that were installed at the airports since when those airports were built are still the same equipment and facilities that are in place for the past 30 years after the construction of these airports," he said.Amadi said that considering the importance of safety, security, effeciency and comfort in air travel and the huge resources required to maintain and upgrade existing infrastructure, the debts were indirectly keeping the Nigerian aviation industry stunted. He argued that with the backlog of debts, it wil be difficult if not impossible for Nigerian airports to provide modern equipment that will enable the country meet international standards and regulations of the global aviation industry.
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