Abuja — As the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) strives to provide adequate surveillance of the nation's airspace, the multi-billion naira new radar project for the country expected to fully come on stream by the end of this year is on track with the completion of Port Harcourt sites by the foreign firm handling the project.

The radar head for Kano Airport is being mounted by the engineers while the avionic components are being fixed to equally meet up with the end of the year deadline set by the contractor. According to the Public Affairs General Manager of the agency, Mr. Supo Atobatele, head of the Thales engineering team, Henry Kahoun who was in Port Harcourt confirmed the completion of the Radar at the weekend during site inspection by top officials of NAMA led by the managing director, Alhaji Ibrahim Auyo.

He stated that the Radar head in Port Harcourt started oscillating on Friday shortly after the Engineers completed its installation. The completion of the site he said, brings to three of the four major airports already delivered by Thales ATM of France, with Lagos and Abuja already deployed for operation a couple of months ago after passing the mandatory calibration test.

Atoabatele explained that the next phase of the Port Harcourt radar site, according to Kahoun would be the fixing of the Air Traffic Management [ATM] system and synchronizing it with the raw - radar within the next two weeks for effective service operation. He said Richard Fichot, the head of the engineering team at Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport [MAKIA], told the visiting NAMA management team that the radar head co-fixed with the primary and secondary surveillance system would be mounted by the weekend, promising to deliver the site on time.

The NAMA Managing Director Usman Auyo said during the inspection of the sites in Port Harcourt and Kano that he was impressed by the quality of job done so far by the engineers, saying "if this tempo can continue, we will meet up with the deadline for both sites."

Also in the team, the Director of Operations, Mr. Adebisi Adedara and the Director of Safety Electronics and Engineering Services, Nnamdi Udoh were at both sites. Udoh disclosed that installations are currently on at the relay stations just as he hinted that the station in Maiduguri has been completed and only waiting for optimization of the radar system. Stations like Ilorin, Obubra, and Nunma have recorded significant progress with Talata and Marafa that are already at the site for installation.

Federal Government sponsored the Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria's project (TRACON) costing about 66.5million Euros with the contract signed in Abuja on April 7, 2003 with Thales ATM of France as part of efforts to boost airspace management in the country with the aid of modern automated navigational equipment.