Unions in the Aviation Industry have reiterated their vehemence stand against the concession of the Nation’s four major airports saying that they will lend their cooperation to the move.
The unions also accused the Minister of Aviation, Capt. Hadi Sirika, of exhibiting self interest in the concession process stating that the opaque manner prescribed by the Minister must be fought to suffer perpetual darkness.
The unions are the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN), Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals (ANAP) and Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) – FAAN branch.
Speaking on behalf of the four unions in a recent joint press briefing at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, General Secretary of NUATE, Comrade Ocheme Aba, pointed out that Certificate of Compliance (C of C) issued Sirika by the Infrastructural Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) few days ago, purportedly confirms that the Minister has complied with all needed requirements to proceed with the process of concession for the four international airports in Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt.
He said: “Therefore the Minister will now proceed to seek the approval of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for his proposed Outline Business Case (OBC) for the project.
“But it is highly regrettable that both the Minister and the ICRC are engaging in a ruse, and are indeed taking Nigerians for a ride. We can say with authority that everything so far about the issue of concession for the four airports have been single handedly decided by the Honourable Minister himself and the ICRC has not carried out any due diligence on the concession exercise. If it did, the Commission would have discovered wide gulfs of deception in the exercise.”
Pointing out some of the shams enshrined in the project Aba said: “While the Project Delivery Team (PDT) which includes the ICRC was still discussing the issue of Transaction Adviser (TA), Sirika was on air announcing the approval of FEC of a TA and his fees. Both the TA and the fees were apparently decided solely by the Minister. Up till date, the PDT has not been allowed to take a position on the matter, its effort in that direction being frustrated surreptitiously.
“Also, at the last meeting of the PDT in late 2019, it was decided that the airports concession issue be degraded to the bottom of the list of aviation priority projects while upgrading the National Carrier, Aviation Leasing Company, and the aircraft Maintenance and Repair Organsation for quick delivery. In addition, the ICRC was requested to provide the required components for the OBCs for the upgraded projects which the Commission promised to provide at the next meeting. That next meeting is yet to be called till date. But now, the same ICRC has been said to have issued a Certificate of Compliance to the Minister of Aviation for the OBC for concession of four international airports. So we ask who is fooling who?”
According to him, the PDT comprises about five federal ministries, including Aviation and Finance, and other agencies including FAAN and the ICRC itself, as well as two representatives of our Unions.
He regretted that the Minister of Aviation completely sidestepped the Team and has gone ahead with his own programmes as determined by himself alone. “For now, however, being a component part of the Team, we completely disown any false reports of the Team there might be, upon which the ICRC might have erroneously based the issuance of the said C of C. We avow hereby that the said Certificate is obtained on faulty grounds,” he stated
He therefore urged President Muhamme Buhari, FEC, the National Assembly and the general public not to be deceived by the “celebrated” C of C from the ICRC and not to approve the privately assembled OBC. “This outline, for reasons stated, cannot be detached from individual embedded interests and may be a self-favouring booby trap,” Aba emphasised.
Speaking further, he noted that privatisation had never succeeded in the Nigeria giving instances of Ajaokuta Steel Complex, steel rolling mills, Nigeria Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and so many more while stressing that the concession of MMA2 to Bi-Courtney remains the biggest example of how not to concession an airport.
He went ahead to condemn the concession of four major airports out of the 22 in the Country noting that those are the cash cows of FAAN which the rest of the airports depend on for sustenance.
Aba explained that as a matter of fact, without the four, the other airports will die automatically. “Therefore, to concession these four airports is to close up FAAN completely. “But considering the basis of creating these other airports which is the public interest of opening up the entire Country, even nationwide development, and national unity, one would wonder the rationale behind the idea of sacrificing these undeniably noble goals on the altar of a superficial notion of private investment. Should the urge to have beautiful airports override our national needs for integration? What about the employees in these other airports who are being sustained by the revenue from the four airports? Do their lives and that of their dependents not matter to the government?” he asked.
The unions wondered why liberalisation or deregulation which took place in mobile networks as well as in the Oil and Gas sector some years back, whereby private firms purchased licenses to operate mobile telecommunication companies and refineries respectively, to compete with government owned companies cannot be done in the Aviation Industry.
The unions therefore, proposed three options of concession as Green Field which empowers new investors to deal on fresh ventures which includes construction of new runways, terminal buildings and so forth to be operated for a specified period of time and compete with the existing airports before handing them over to the government.
The second option is corporatisation where FAAN can be corporatised in which the Federal Government shall retain 45 per cent equity share while the remaining 55 per cent is broken down for public acquisition.
The third model is complete autonomy of FAAN without the usual political meddlesomeness from the Ministry and the Presidency which they noted, has been the bane of effective and efficient performance of the aviation sector in Nigeria.
“For avoidance of doubt, our Unions with all aviation workers, particularly FAAN workers and pensioners, will not co-operate with the concession programme of the Honourable Minister of Aviation and will use every resource at our disposal to ensure that the machinations of the few against public interest ends here,” Aba warned.
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