Aviation professionals reject FG’s plan to concession airports
Aviation professionals have rejected the decision of the Federal Government to concession the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja.
The groups spoke on Friday under the aegis of the Association of Nigerian Aviation Professionals (ANAP) and the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) Branch.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had on Monday said the Federal Executive Council, FEC, has approved the concessioning of the Lagos and Abuja International Airports for better management.
In the joint briefing by the Secretary-General of ANAP, Comrade Rasaq Saidu and the General Secretary of NUP, Comrade Emeka Njoku, they said past records of Federal Government on concessioning agreements has not gone as planned as they were riddled with corruption.
The aviation professional opined that have looked into records of past ceding of revenue points to the private sector and discovered that they were not properly managed and were still unfavourable to the Federal Government and the concerned parastatals in the aviation sector.
ANAP and NUP have therefore urged the Federal Government to reconstitute the governing board of directors of aviation parastatals dissolved by the immediate past administration to ensure probity, transparency, blocking reign of impunity and corruption.
They also disputed the minister’s claim of involving aviation stakeholders in arriving at the concession. “We were never consulted,” ANAP and NUP maintained. They expressed the view that it is possible that the Federal Executive Council has not have been adequately briefed before agreeing to the decision to concession the airports.
“We have made in-depth findings about other government-owned companies and agencies already said to have either been out rightly sold, privatized or concessioned and discovered that those firms were not and are still not properly managed, other than to compound the running of those places such as the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), steel companies, railways and others,” both associations said in their joint statement.
ANAP and NUP alleged that in FAAN, more than 80% of the internally generated revenue (IGR) are under questionable agreements entered by previous governments and managements and “we thought that if the ‘Change’ manifesto of the present Federal Government was to take effect, it should have positive impact on the aviation sector. The Minister of State for Aviation ought to have reviewed some of the past concession agreements rather than introducing or entering into new ones.”
They also pointed out that private ownership of landed properties constituted security risk to the country and also have negative implicated on its economy.
“Private ownership of property on such land is understandable, but not land. There must be lease agreement premiums to be payable yearly to the Federal Government through its agency, and in this case to FAAN, but this was not and is still not in practice resulting into loss of trillions of naira unpaid revenue to government by many individual companies.”
The two unions insisted that all areas of land formerly occupied by the Nigeria Airways nationwide must be leased to those who purportedly bought the properties on those lands within the airport vicinity.
“Examples of such are lands occupied by Arik Air, Skyline Hotel, Air Peace, Obi Village and numerous buildings around MMIA, all in Ikeja, Lagos and all other areas.
Both unions wondered why the National Assembly has not acted on their petition written to them since July 7 to intervene until the Federal Government now took the decision to concession the airports.
Both unions declared their allegiance to United Labour Congress, the Joe Ajaero faction of the Nigeria Labour Congress.
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