Over N230 billion have been expended and
gone down the drain on domestic airlines as intervention in the past
few years, stakeholders have said.
They also reveal that the Federal
Government may be earning about N27 billion annually as royalties from
foreign airlines on the inability of Nigeria to fully utilise the
Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA).
They say the BASA that Nigeria signed
with foreign countries is so lopsided because politicians have refused
to allow technocrats do the right thing, hence a great exploitation.
“Political appointees work with the
ministry technocrats who often do not have sufficient knowledge on the
working or nature of international airlines operations and the methods
of negotiating Commercial Aviation Businesses Agreements.
“Without reference or input from major
public and other private aviation operators they develop administrative
policies, not national policies, which are exploitative, irrational and
unilateral. Such are the nature of the policies for the administration
of Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASAs), Commercial Airline
Agreements and the Aviation Intervention Funds.
“BASAs are reciprocatory and are
expected to restrict the beneficiaries of states airlines to a single
entry point. Conversely, the administration of BASAs in Nigeria are
skewed by the ministry of aviation officials more to the advantages of
the foreign airlines than for the domestic airline operators, such that
some foreign airlines operate to all the Nigerian five international
airports.
“Consequently, the policy has taken the
market on the routes to these airports away from the domestic airlines.
In effect, the policy has shifted the balance of trade more in favour of
the foreign airlines and their states.
“If my knowledge of mathematics is
right, the royalties on the imbalance on 21 BASAs and the Commercial
Agreements, at about $50 per seat for the extra of about 45,000 seats,
should fetch the government about $117 million or N27 billion annually.
“Whatever informed a minister to take
such a reverse decision to discontinue the royalties on this imbalance
in 2014, can only bring a setback for an economic sector that has the
potential to contribute up to 20 percent to the GDP but was contributing
less than 1 percent because of the various unilateral exploitations
policies,” John Ojikutu, a retired airport commandant/CEO, Centurion
Security and Safety Limited, said
According to him, another policy that
had been formulated to favour government officials and politicians,
rather than the travelling public or the economy, was that of
intervention fund to domestic airlines.
He challenged government to ask
questions on how the fund, which he said had gone down the drain, was
disbursed and put to use by the airlines.
“The policy of Aviation Intervention
Funds is one in which political appointees and the technocrats in the
ministry in ally induced government institutions through the Presidency
to provide ‘loose’ funds for the private airline operators at interest
rates as low as 6 percent annually; some favoured operators got theirs
at 2 percent interest rate. This was done at a time when the average
interest rate on bank loans was about 20 percent or more.
“Over N230 billion was said to have been
shared to these airlines. The aim of the Policy on Intervention Funds,
according to government officials at the National Assembly 7th Senate
Public Hearing on the Intervention Fund in 2012, was for the private
airline operators to use the funds, not to re-fleet their airline, but
specifically for the re-negotiation of their bank loans and for the
servicing their debts.
“Pray, what sort of economy provides such amount of monies as loans for debts servicing?” he asked.
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