Sosoliso/ADC: Families should go after insurance companies —Says aviation minister

These are issues we are working on day and night with the support of House of Representatives and the Senate. On the issue of Sosoliso airlines, about two weeks ago, I held a meeting with the chairman of the airline on how the issue of the crash could be resolved permanently. Both airlines want to […]

These are issues we are working on day and night with the support of House of Representatives and the Senate. On the issue of Sosoliso airlines, about two weeks ago, I held a meeting with the chairman of the airline on how the issue of the crash could be resolved permanently. Both airlines want to come back and commence operations in the industry but we have told them that they will not meet the test of public scrutiny if their licenses should be returned to them without them settling all the victims’ families.

Sosoliso is close to an agreement. There is a committee of the parents of those children that took them to court; they are trying to withdraw the case from the court and have reached an agreement. They have paid a certain sum to some of them, which we believe is less than $100,000 which we insisted must be paid.

But we have sought the opinions of the attorneys and they said that if two parties should agree on a settlement, even if it is less than the $100, 000, it is binding in law and once they settle, we will come out to tell the press how it has been resolved so that as from that point, we will start talking about returning to operate.

The same thing goes to ADC airlines; they are working day and night. I met with their Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mr Ufom and we have discussed twice now. To the best of my knowledge, they are working to ensure that all the victims’ families are settled and of course, we are also encouraging them to go after the insurance companies, in case the insurance companies are not living up to their obligations.

We are working on these but, I understand it is taking sometime and we feel the pains of the lost ones but again, we are making sure that these are resolved.

Government recently came out with a verdict that there will not be a bail out for any of the Nigerian airlines in spite of the global economic meltdown. So in what way does government intend to encourage the indigenous airline operators?

We have made it clear that the federal government will not give any bail-out to the airlines and our position has not changed. Now, several suggestions came up from the stakeholders meeting including “Fly the Nigerian Act” where we will be telling the public and government officials to fly the Nigerian airlines before flying any other airlines.

We also talked about the waivers of Customs duties. There are so many good suggestions that came up and at this point in time, I’m not in the position to tell you that this is what we are going to do because this is something that I have to get higher approval for.

So, we are putting all the suggestions together and we are going to table them for discussions. It’s only after then that I can come out and tell you the position of government. On our part [ministry of aviation], we all know that these airlines owe various agencies in the Nigerian aviation industry heavily and we have taken a position not to push them too much.

If you owe NCAA or NAMA, we are not pushing you too much on those agencies and it is when you owe FAAN that I’m a little bit difficult to allow. The reason is very simple; we have to be very careful with FAAN so that it doesn’t go the way of the defunct Nigeria Airways. That is the reason I’m somehow difficult when it comes to FAAN. In essence, what I am saying is that we are willing to sit down with them [airlines], look at their debt profiles and try to elongate the repayment rather than force them to pay.

FAAN we all know needs money to operate. I assure you that the federal government will one way or the other provide support to them. That we are going to come out with but it is not definitely going to a bail-out and I can’t tell you what it is going to be at least for now.

On donation of ambulance to NCAT by World Bank…

This is not a donation because the federal government is getting $46.65 million loan from the World Bank. Now, this loan was taken as aftermath of the several crashes we had in the country in the past few years to ensure that the money is channelled towards safety in critical areas of the aviation sub-sector. And some of the very important projects that are coming up under the project include installation of low level windshear system in three of our airports, procurement of 10 fire tenders, one of them would be in NCAT, Zaria while others would be at the four major airports.

Also, we are going to begin perimeter fence in the major airports, which will further improve the level of safety and security at the airports. You will agree with me that this is very important especially at this period in the country where we have to protect our strategic assets. Again, substantial amount of the money will go on training. In the aviation industry, what we are selling are the people.

If you don’t have good and qualified personnel in strategic positions, it’s going to cause disaster. So, ensuring zero level of accident, manpower training and capacity building are very important and these are part of the things that are coming under the World Bank Project.

We are also getting equipment for crisis management including installation of scanning machines both for passengers and luggage. You will agree with me that Nigeria is not a target for terrorist attack but in most times, if people check-in their luggage and they don’t fly on the aircraft, we will make sure they get the luggage out because there could be explosives inside.

Furthermore, we are getting the Central Circuit Television (CCTV) in order to continue to protect our borders. We are also putting three simulators in NCAT to ensure our training. Everything you have under the World Bank loan, they are safety packages.

The immediate past minister of aviation, Mr. Felix Hyat, ordered the relocation of aviation agencies’ headquarters to Abuja but it seems they are back to Lagos.

We all have our headquarters in Abuja but the centre of action in the Nigerian aviation industry is Lagos. So, you will still see substantial activities in Lagos but the headquarters remain in Abuja.

NCAT before now used to be a force to be reckoned with in African civil aviation industry but the reverse is the case now. What is government doing to ensure that the college returns to its good old days?

This is a foremost institution for training of aviation experts in Africa and the federal government is doing so much to ensure that the school regains its lost glory… Two years ago, this school I believe had only one aircraft for training of students but today, we have 21 aircraft for the same training. That attests to the level of planning that the federal government has provided to ensure that this school continues to prosper.

In this year’s budget, we are building new student hostels, library, simulators and others.

Today, Nigerian pilots are depreciating in number. What is government doing to curb this?

I agree with you but you will equally agree with me that before may 2007, this school was virtually not operating and we realised that if something was not done immediately, in another 10 to 15 years, when our pilots start retiring, we are going to have problems. This year, we are going to acquire new aircraft of about N750 million and we already have some sets of pilots who graduated and we just advertised for a new set of pilots training and we believe we are going to take about 36 to 40 students into that class and we are going to make sure that we sensitise all our state governors because we are going to make sure that we have people from all states of the federation coming for this training.

So, we are well-prepared and some of our airlines are going to support the school by giving scholarship to students that will come in. Mind you, this is not the only area in aviation that we have problem, even in regulatory area, we have the same problem and what we are trying to do is to train a lot of personnel. So, consciously, we are going to look inward to make sure that we position people in strategic positions.

There are allegations from chartered aircraft operators that the owners of private jets are converting their jets to charter and are diverting customers and from the look of things, these private jet owners are not being regulated by anybody. 

I want to disagree with you that the private jet operators operating commercial services are not being regulated, they are actually being regulated but, I want you to direct the question to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority because they are the policeman of the industry.

A large part of NCAT land has been encroached upon by the indigenes. What do you intend to do so the school reclaims its land?

This is a big problem to us because the other day, I was told that a substantial part of the NCAT land had been taken over by some of the indigenes in this area. In some of the land, you will find filling stations, residential buildings while some use it for farming. This is something we are planning to discuss with the state government. I don’t know how we are going to solve this huge problem.

Initially, I suggested that we should erect a fence but NCAT management said if you do that, the people will demolish the wall. So, we are trying to stop the encroachment and also recover the land. But I don’t think we are going to recover all. We should be able to recover parts of the land but it is something I want to discuss with the government before we know what to do.

The House Committee on Aviation says that the concession of airports is not going the way it expected so rather it called for commercialisation. Do you still intend to go ahead with the concession?

The way I see the House Committee on Aviation is that we are partners in progress, we work very closely with each other. I know that after their review of all the parastatals in the industry, they will still call me to inform me on what they have found and what they expect.

I have also promised them that we are going to carry them along in whatever we do in the industry especially on the issue of concessioning.

So, when it comes to me taking executive decisions representing Mr. President, I will not allow anybody to take that away from me and therefore, the issue of the concession is going to be driven by the executive while the House Committee on Aviation is going to maintain its oversight functions.

For us, we are going to go ahead to concession those airports and we are going to follow transparent procedures and that is the reason I put up a small committee to help me and I put up an independent person in the person of the Chairman of Aviation Round Table, Captain Dele Ore as the chairman of that committee so that all of you can see what we are doing.

So, it is going to be very transparent, we are open to criticisms, suggestions and we are going to take every suggestion carefully and we are going to make sure that we carry everybody along including the House of Representatives and the Senate. There is no going back on the concession.

Many Nigerian professionals are daily being poached by foreign airlines, how do we arrest this ugly situation?

Unfortunately, poaching is a very difficult thing to prevent for anybody in the industry. Anywhere you have very good people who have certificates that can speak for them, many people will want to offer them so many things to ensure that they get to the other side but, the good news for Nigeria, if you look at the studies done on Nigeria in the last few months, there is a report that Nigeria is the best economy to invest in this time of global economic crisis. The reason is basically because our economy is a cash economy and not a credit economy and we don’t have much tax in Nigeria.

Again, it is discovered that our economy remains untapped and most professionals that understand this are coming back home to invest in the country. Let us look at the next two years or so, most Nigerians who reside abroad would come back home to invest in the economy.

There are allegations that most of the multiple destinations given the foreign airlines flying into the country are politically induced, which has had adverse effects on our indigenous airlines, what do you have to say on this?

Actually, I want to assure you that decisions on Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) arrangement, destinations and multiple designations are actually done by professionals. In fact, on our BASA negotiating team, we actually have representatives from Nigerian airlines on the discussions to ensure that they are not short-changed, make their own contributions and remain profitable. And the government and the ministry are giving them all the support they required.

Some of our airlines in Nigeria have all the ICAO Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) that you can expect and therefore, it is easier for the foreign airlines to come into Nigeria and drop passengers for them.

However, some of the foreign airlines are scared of dropping passengers to our carriers and that is the work NCAA is doing for our airlines to get the certification and once they get the certification, there will be no more reason for foreign airlines not to co-share with them and once that is done, it will be easier for our airlines to begin to pick passengers in the country while the foreign airlines just come into one destination. Again, we are going to put this in mind when we go for the next BASA agreement for this country.