WHY Spending N10bn for Airports Slated for Concession
| Aviation industry watchers and practitioners are questioning the rationale or wisdom in the Federal Government’s approval of N10bn to the Ministry of Aviation for the automation of five international airports in the country that have been slated for concession. The airports are:Murtala Muhammed Airport Lagos,Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja,Malam Aminu Kano International Airport Kano,Port-Harcort International Airport and Enugu International Airport. |
| The questions being posed at the Ministry of Aviationare: these airports are already designated for concession by the ministry. If the ministry wants to concession the airports/terminals, is it necessary again for the same ministry to expend such a humongous amount of money on its automation? What will the concessionaire then do? Or has the ministry jettisoned the idea of concession for the five airports? The Federal Executive Council (FEC) during its weekly meeting approved contract worth over N10 billion for the provision of Airport Management Solutions for Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt and Enugu.l international airports. According to the Minister of Aviation,Senator Hadi Sirika, the contract was awarded to Arlington Security Nigeria Limited with the timeline of 12 months. Sirika explained that the system would facilitate common use of terminal equipment required for sharing airport resources in accordance with International Air Transport Association(IATA) Recommendation 1797. “This allows flexible sharing of resources for check-in and boarding, such as servers, work stations, associated peripherals between airlines and handling agencies present at the airport,” He said the system would also provide for baggage drop, which makes it faster and quicker for passenger processing. Hadi Sirika said the system would also provide for E-gates that would be electronically operated. He explained that it is new and had not been part of the system provided in Lagos and Abuja before now. Olumide Ohunayo,a member of Aviation Round Table and Safety Initiative explains his position on the approval of another N10bn to Hadi Sirika by the Federal Executive Council: “The money approved has to do with airport operating system. All these departure gates, cameras and other system. What were approved for were equipment to be used at terminal buildings for the five major airports.” “These are the terminal buildings and airports that are already slated for concessioning. So, you now begin to wonder why the government is spending money for someone else to come in and take such terminals.” “At what point did the government decide on this? We never saw any advert, bidding for it and suddenly, a price came out from nowhere and it was approved. The same Federal Executive Council that said they were stopping the national carrier has gone ahead to approve over N20 billion for the same project from palliatives. You are giving N5 billion to those who are living and gave N22 billion to a child that has not been born.” He said that , there is something wrong in the disposition of cash in the industry of late and the approval from the FEC. Invariably, with this approval, it is assumed concession of the airports is done and dusted for it not to be raised again forever. “For me, I am happy to see Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) takes over the airports back from the concession, but there is need to make FAAN commercially-oriented, profitable and be investors in other airports outside Nigeria.” Now that we are once again investing in our airports, we can as well look at a management company that will take over the management of FAAN for a period of eight to 10 years to restructure FAAN for profitability as a full airport company. Grp.John Ojikutu(rtd) one time Military Commandant at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos view the situation thus:”First, what has our government and FAAN agreed together as ‘Airport Management Solutions’ for our airports security without the agreements of the government security agencies working at our airports? We need to find out the requirements and the demands of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in Annex 17 from member States.” “We need to be careful in awarding the contract to anyone without ensuring the national security, which the aviation security as an element of the national security; the input of the national security council is very necessary.” Ojikutu said the amount involved is an amount for consideration by the national security council and not by the ministry of aviation alone. Note, the $20/passenger for security should not be for aviation, but for national security council approval. “Aviation security is a matter for national security council not for aviation and should therefore not be included in the airport concession”. “Government should not include any aspect of aviation security in any part of the airport concession in whatever form it is given as PUBLIC Offer”. “Chapter one of ICAO Annex 17 demands that member States should set up a national aviation security committee not national CIVIL aviation security committee. The reason is obvious; many countries including Nigeria developed our aviation from military aviation and a lot of our aviation architecture and infrastructure are joint in usage hence that demand” For Capt.Ibrahim Mshelia,the issue of concession has been a heated argument for a very long time and not only with this administration. Concession has its huge benefits if done rightly and not skewed to favour one side. I have always believed in concessioning government interests to private expert and able entrepreneurs if it will create more jobs than present, upgrade facilities to better standard than present. “This has been the argument in the past and again I support concession, but with the terms above. The property going for concession belongs to the people, you cannot therefore concession and send the people home to be jobless. They will fight you to keep their jobs.” “I agree also no concessionnaire will take over anything in Nigeria without firing people. Let’s fix that problem ourselves first and save the concessionnaire the headache with the unions.” He said that aviation is a specialised field. Only specially trained and qualified people work there. Is this the situation now? We all know the answer is NO!!! All concessionnaires , be it local or expatriate will work with only relevant staff and who are properly trained for the job. The concessionaire,he said is in business to make money too. We have run our things to create jobs only and stay afloat. No concessionnaire will continue when they take over. So, what we should do is fix this huge problem. Infrastructural upgrade itself should be a part of the conditions for the concessionnaire to be able to do to be considered and not the other way round in my opinion “. But then when you are on the hot seat, you see more than the public. In which case public hearing now becomes relevant to present the situation before the people and explain your actions”. “This is democracy and a public officer is a servant to the people and not a master in this case. Any concessionnaire who is not able or willing to bring in money, make it better and create more jobs is not what Nigerians should present at this time of national difficulty.” Capt.Mshelia said that anything short of this in his opinion is not in the interest of Nigeria in our current state and should be resisted by all well meaning Nigerians. I don’t know what they are doing and what terms are being considered in the ongoing discussions on these planned concessions. So, sincerely or not it is not in my purview to discuss unless I see the terms. However, Government has responsibility to the citizens to create jobs etc. So, if at the point government sees that concession will provide better opportunities, then by all means we should give government chance to concession. But also, how do you make the citizens understand you? Dialogue!! If you dialogue then you educate people of the real issue and it will be clear. Why there is hostile reception to the planned concession May be lack of clarity. Perhaps not, but I feel the government should be transparent on this . Call the stakeholders and put on the table the pros and the cons, what will be concessioned, how much is currently being generated and how more will be generated. To be a disciplined administrator of government, you must humble yourself and take every one along even if you will not agree with some view points. “This is because you are serving them, but when you exert your ideas always, or act like you are their boss then you compound your problems. If you also call for public hearing and select who should talk, then you turn around and say you had a public hearing when you only selected who can talk or cut people short.” Dr. Gbenga Olowo on the approval of N10bn by FEC for airport automation project “Private sector participation in aviation safe for airlines with this administration remains cloudy. National carrier rebirth itself remain a contradiction. In six years, Arik, Aero, national carrier remain a mirage.” “Policy statement on concession of airports to evolve total private sector participation is not here in six years when Ghana Airport Transformation took barely two years”. “One would have expected ICRC to concession the airports after resolving the many bugging issues already identified by industry experts, workers unions and the general public and utilize this funds on more pressing issues in the sector. Pardon my ignorance.” “I presume bidding process must have been concluded by Infrastructure Concessioning and Regulatory Commission (ICRC) under whose purview the activity lies where concessioning to be on course.” |
